Jerry Falwell Dies

[Camy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6659457.stm

[jack scribe]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6659457.stm

Teletubbies everywhere can rest a little easier, tonight.

[Tanuki Racoon]

YAY! May he rest in the eternal abyss of Hell.

[Cole Parker]

But we all have to hope he doesn't now have the ear of God. If he does, it would certainly be the right ear. There was absolutely nothing the slightest bit to the left about Mr. Falwell.

C

[colinian]

But we all have to hope he doesn't now have the ear of God. If he does, it would certainly be the right ear. There was absolutely nothing the slightest bit to the left about Mr. Falwell.

C

The only right ear Mr. Falwell will be able to have is that of Satan. Like my granddad says, they were cut from the same cloth.

Colin

[blue]

We must love better than he did, or we have learned too little, or no more than he.

[The Pecman]

I hope that if Falwell winds up in heaven, he's tormented by the fact that there are gays and Jews there.

[DesDownunder]

The sad thing here is that a man died without realising he didn't need to hate other people.

Let us do all we can to make sure that his hate does not survive him.

[JamesSavik]

I will always regret that we were alive at the same time and I didn't get a chance to kick his *&^%$(ing ass.

I am reminded of a line from a story in which the protagonist was ditching a particulary decietful and evil lover:

"You are just a piece of s**t I stepped in and it will take a long time to get you off my soul."

[Josiah Jacobus-Parker]

as much as i think he was a horrible person, i wouldn't wish death or hell on anyone...

Frankly, the fact that he died still so respected by many right-wingers is more bothersome. My wish is that he'd been exposed in some scandal or discredited in some way before his death.

That said though, I'm counting down the days on Fred Phelps.

[dude]

Good Riddance to Jerry Falwell

by Tommi Avicolli Mecca? May. 16? 2007

In the Castro, Tuesday, May 15 was anything but a day to mourn.

News that right-wing Christian minister Jerry Falwell had died that morning brought about 30 queers to the corner of 18th and Castro during rush hour to attend an "anti-memorial" that was full of good cheer. Representatives of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of gay male nuns that Falwell had once attacked, were on hand to help exorcise the spirit of the hate-spewing fundamentalist preacher.

On queervision, an internet discussion group, message lines in emails hailed "ding-dong the witch is dead" and "Falwell is dead day." Entries on the SF Bay Guardian blog, too, expressed no regret about the 73-year-old bigot's sudden passing in his office at Liberty University in Virginia.

http://' target="_blank">Some may think it's tasteless to speak ill of the dead, but certainly not in the case of Jerry Falwell. The man made a lucrative career out of bashing the LGBT community and fighting any gains that women made, such as Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in America. He was also a segregationist who once denounced South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a foe of apartheid, as a phony and not a proper representative of Blacks.

In 1965, Falwell criticized the work of Dr. Martin Luther King and dubbed the civil rights struggle the "civil wrongs movement." He regularly featured racists such as former Alabama Governor George Wallace on his "Old-Time Gospel Hour" TV Program. His voter registration drive among Christian fundamentalists in the late 70s is credited as having given Ronald Reagan his presidential victory in 1980.

While riding high on that newfound political influence, Falwell suffered a couple of rather humiliating defeats, one at the hands of Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, after the publication ran a spoof of Falwell's "first time," a supposedly incestuous relationship with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which surprisingly backed Flynt's right to parody the public figure. It was a great victory for free speech.

In 1984, a self-proclaimed gay pagan, Jerry Sloan, sued Falwell after he slammed the gay Metropolitan Community Church during a TV debate. Sloan accused Falwell of characterizing MCC as "brute beasts" and "a vile and satanic system." Falwell denied that he said those things and told Sloan he'd pay him $5,000 if he produced proof. Sloan produced a tape. Falwell refused to pay, so Sloan sued and won.

Falwell eventually backed down from his stand on segregation, but never relented on his attacks on homosexuality. He not only described gay sexuality as "Satan's diabolical attack upon the family," but also believed that AIDS was God's way of punishing queers, as well as "God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

In 1999, Falwell caused a huge stir by outing Tinky-Winky, a BBC children's show character who wore purple and had an inverted triangle on his head. He also carried a magic bag. Producers denied that Tinky-Winky was queer and said that there was nothing wrong with a man carrying a purse.

Perhaps one of Falwell's most tasteless quips was after 9/11: He blamed the attack on the Twin Towers on "the pagans and the feminists and the gays." He was later forced to apologize.

Falwell's is a legacy that leaves nothing to be proud of.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical, southern Italian, working-class, atheist queer performer and writer whose work can be seen atwww.avicollimecca.com.

[Drewbie]

I will always regret that we were alive at the same time and I didn't get a chance to kick his *&^%$(ing ass.

I am reminded of a line from a story in which the protagonist was ditching a particulary decietful and evil lover:

"You are just a piece of s**t I stepped in and it will take a long time to get you off my soul."

Wish I could meet him so I could of yelled him, or least did some nasty kissing in front of him.

[Trab]

At this point, assuming one actually believes in God, one can be fairly sure that he has been straightened out (oh my) in regards to orientation,and all the other hateful things he believed. Regardless of how he lived, I'm sure there are family and friends who miss him. I feel for their sorrow, even if I don't share it.

[JamesSavik]

Buh-bye

[Abraxas]

It may be tasteless to celebrate the passing of this bigoted overblown windbag, and the end of his hate-filled rantings, but just this once, I think being tasteless is something I'll have to indulge in. I won't throw a party over it, but must admit I felt the darkness recede slightly, making the world feel a bit lighter with his passing. I can only hope that, in the end, he receives a measure of the pain he so liberally bestowed on the gay community.

Now if only Fred Phelps would have the good grace to follow Falwell into whatever awaits him in the afterlife...

Abraxas

[Tanuki Racoon]

Buh-bye

A simple post yet one of the best I've seen on the subject. "Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined."*

* That is the corporate slogan of Hooters, Inc (really).

[colinian]

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column in the Friday May 18 issue of the SF Chronicle is a series of quotes from Jerry Falwell. It's an amazing read, and exposes Jerry Falwell in a way that shows how irrational and hateful this man was. Go to http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/. His column starts with this quote:

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

And ends with this quote:

"Tinky Winky is gay."

The two dozen in between are even more unbelievable.

Colin

[Trab]

I'm not going to ruin a perfectly good day by stepping in dog dung. Thanks anyway.

[DesDownunder]

Now I know why God made me an atheist.

[Trab]

Des, that's about as close to an oxymoron as one can get without actually getting there.

[Cole Parker]

And therein lies the humor.

[E.J.]

That said though, I'm counting down the days on Fred Phelps.

Anti-Gay Phelps Clan To Protest At Falwell Funeral

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

LINK

(Topeka, Kansas) Westboro Baptist Church says it intends to state a protest at the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Falwell died died Tuesday at age 73. The funeral will be Tuesday at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church he founded, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

On its Web site, Westboro says it will "preach" outside the funeral "of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone.'"

The church is run by the Rev. Fred Phelps and its 70 members are made up mostly of Phelps' relatives. Although it professes to be Baptist it is not affiliated with any national Baptist group.

In attacking Falwell the church says he "warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White (of Souflorce), and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc."

The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro operates Web sites including GodHatesFags and GodHatesAmerica and has been described as a cult.

Phelps and the church first came to national attention when he organized a protest by his followers outside the 1998 funeral for Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student who was beaten to death in Wyoming. The killing, Phelps' protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to the play "The Laramie Project."

Church members routinely demonstrate at the funerals of AIDS victims and most recently at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Lately it has pointed its criticism overseas. Last month the Swedish royal family hired a lawyer after hundreds of threatening faxes clogged the offices of various members of the royal family threatening they will "spend eternity in hell" and suggesting various members of the family, including King Carl Gustaf, are gay.

Falwell for his part was no friend to the gay community.

Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 Falwell declared that gays and pro choice advocates were to blame.

In 2003 Falwell announced that he was putting aside everything to devote his time to passage of a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage and in the 2004 election campaign he worked with Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue.

Soulforce founder Mel White at one time worked with Falwell but the two split after White came out.

?365Gay.com 2007

[Tragic Rabbit]

Like love, that's very nearly priceless.

TR

[JamesSavik]

FROM a discussion thread at GA

>>"the American "founding fathers" understood about the need to keep religion separate from government" -Kitty @ GA

Europeans had made the mistake of mixing religion and politics since their first city-states. The Protestant VS Catholic scrimmages in Central Europe dominated that continents history for centuries. When they had a war, it was a real hate-fest: the First War, the Second war, the Third War, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Fourth through the Eighth Wars, the Thirty Years War, the Hundred Years War and so on. Only in recent decades have we seen an easing of tensions in Northern Ireland which is a relic of those long, sorry conflicts.

Some scholars say that Islam mixes some of the worst aspects of religion and politics into the cultist, xenophobic, militant mess that tolerates no rivals from Algeria to the Philippines.

One of the reasons that America works is that religion and politics have been fundamentally disconnected and that the power of goverenment can not be used to oppress nonbelievers or infidels (in theory). Seperation of church and state has been one of the prime factors that has lead to the long term stability and prosperity that the United States has enjoyed.

Almost everywhere else in the world different religious factions constantly struggle for economic, military and cultural dominance. Nowhere else in the world is this better illustrated by the current situation in Iraq. In the absence of a strong, central power like Saddam who killed thousands to keep order, Iraq has decendended into anarchy with fighting along religious (Sunni, Shia) and ethnic (Kurdish) lines with a dozen smaller factions that go with the flow.

Starting during the Industrial revolution, the Western Democracies (or countries that were headed that way) have all followed the lead of the US and have become more and more tolerant of minority religions. Religious tolerance has become a cornerstone of democracy and a hallmark of an advanced and prosperous culture.

In the 1980s when Falwell and his followers began to make noises about making America "a Christian Nation" again, educated people everywhere saw this as populist pablum and potentially a huge step backwards.

The United States has never been a Christian nation. In fact, unless we bastardize the constution (which seems to be fashionable), the United States was specifically designed from the very beginning NOT to be a Christian nation.

[Cole Parker]

James, that was marvelous! Thank you.

C