Farewell to Falwell -- And Good Riddance

Jerry Falwell died this week, and while it may be unseemly to dance on his grave, trip the light fantastic, I shall.

Seriously, he was one of, if not the, least careful, least compassionate purveyors of the purported “love of Christ” I have encountered in my lifetime. Only Fred Phelps’ ability to be a gigantic religious rectal fistula surpasses Falwell’s voluminous achievements in this field.

Not only did he famously say, "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals," he spent even more time refining that notion. "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

I’m sure that any God worth his or her burnt offering will have special little punishments for all kinds of transgressions, like wearing white after Labor Day, but I don’t spend a lot of time trying to specifically enumerate each one. He also said “I truly cannot imagine men with men, women with women, doing what they were not physically created to do, without abnormal stress and misbehavior."

Funny, that’s how I feel about single-sex bowling leagues, but I don’t tell people they’re going to hell if they belong to one.

Note to Fat, Creepy Fundies: please stop spending long summer afternoons imagining gay people having sex. It’s bad enough when we imagine y’all in Speedos, feather boas, and the latest in faux leatherwear from CHAPped.com. At least we don’t tell everyone else about the long nights of ensuing vomiting and diarrhea, which can only be resolved by pajama parties centered around bathtubs full of generic Appletinis. Just stop imagining gay sex, and the cosmo, mojito and various-tini shortages will all stop, immediately.

He was a major perpetrator of the “homo as boogeyman” philosophy, as evidenced by this further quote: “We will see a breakdown of the family and family values if we decide to approve same-sex marriage, and if we decide to establish homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle with all the benefits that go with equating it with the heterosexual lifestyle.”

Errr, I haven’t noticed New York, Vermont, or even Oregon going up in flames, recently, have you? Georgia and Florida on the other hand, restrict same sex marriage and they’re burning down. Who should we believe? Evangelists or our own eyes? Looks to me like God might not be so happy with the current crop of aging fundie leadership, hmmmm.

Just to be very clear about how much he hated the homos, he finished off with, “[homosexuals are] brute beasts...part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”

Well, frankly, Jer, it’s gonna be a boring-ass celebration. No trendy drinks, or tight pants, just a bunch of Mormons not showing off their special underwear, and every humorless jackass “partying down”. Yeah, let me know when Ticketmaster gets hold of that revenue stream, so I can fail to wait in an endless telequeue for tickets to the Most Asinine Gathering, EVAR.

Unfortunately for the rest of the sarcasm industry, Falwell was never indicted for sleeping with prostitutes or partying with the KKK, although he was in bed with apartheid South Africa and Reagan's shameful legacy in South America. Those two stances do prompt one to reflect, “When did Jesus say, ‘Love your neighbor, unless they’re brown in which case enslave, exploit and destroy them” which is, frankly, a very Old Testament way of looking at things.

Additionally, Jesus counseled that love is the greatest of gifts one could give to another, regardless of the others’ faith tradition. Did Falwell believe this? Here’s his quote, “If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.”

Wow, can’t you just feel the compassion?

This is the same guy who, in 1999, asserted that the Antichrist was a male Jew. I imagine Streisand started scripting "Yentl 2: Electric Jewgaloo" about then (straight to video, not sadly).

This is what he said right after 911, “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'You helped this happen".

Yup, everything bad that happens is the fault of the homos, and everything good belongs to God. What a nuanced, carefully thought-out position which affords the greatest good for the greatest number. Not. Here are a few more quotes:

“The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability”

"The argument that making contraceptives available to young people would prevent teen pregnancies is ridiculous. That's like offering a cookbook as a cure to people who are trying to lose weight."

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" -- Rev Jerry Falwell, "America Can Be Saved," 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, "The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom"

"The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc."
-- Jerry Falwell, "Finding Inner Peace and Strength"

"I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status."
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, USA Today Chat, quoted from The Religious Freedom Coalition, "The Two faces of Jerry Falwell"

I mean seriously, in the aftermath of his untimely (as in too late) demise, we’re supposed to forget everything bad he ever said about homosexuals just to make the Christians feel good about lionizing him, which they were going to do anyway?

Pharisee, please.