Ding, Dong…
May 16, 2007
In case you haven’t heard, Jerry Falwell is dead.
In my circle of online friends and acquaintances, this raises certain questions. For instance, is it morally acceptable to be glad of someone’s demise? Is that question moot given that the bulk of Falwell’s political influence passed away before Falwell’s own bulk did? Or did it? Why exactly is the Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church going to picket his funeral–weren’t they batting for the same team? What new hydra head will sprout from the bloody stump Falwell leaves hanging off the still very much alive “Christian Right”? What surprises await Falwell in the afterlife? Given that Falwell famously asserted the 9/11 terrorist attacks to be the fault of “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,” then… what does that heart attack say about Falwell’s standing in the eyes of God?
Hey, I’m not actually sayin’. I’m just sayin’. “Consistency is all I ask!” (Stoppard)
Falwell founded the allegedly Moral alleged Majority, whose first major act was to attack feminists (”These women just need a man in the house”) and to undermine the Equal Rights Amendment. Falwell tried to convince America’s pre-schoolers that the purple Teletubby, Tinky-Winky, a being whose sexuality ought properly to be considered non-existent, was gay. And you are no doubt familiar with his charming reaction to the attacks of September 11, 2001, alluded to above.
For more about his life, his ministry, his influence, and just a glimpse at some of the irreperable harm this man wrought over the course of his allotted lifespan, the Times (UK) and the Toronto Star (Canada) have somewhat more informative obituaries than, say, MSNBC’s.
What more can anyone say, that Falwell himself didn’t already say for himself?
“Fundamentalist cleric Jerry Falwell died today, age 73.” (Plotkin)
That just about sums it up.
I think a lot of us are wresting with the moral question of whether to celebrate Falwell’s death or pray for his soul.
I hadn’t heard about the Phelps thing, though. It doesn’t surprise me; Phelps has been a sensationalist hypocrite for many years. In fact, I wrote an open letter to him in the Rants section of my website in October of 1998. (Back then, the term “blog” didn’t exist, as far as I know. What we call blog entries now, I called “personal essays” or “rants” back then. Yeah, I’m an Internet geezer. Deal with it.)
Anyway, if you’re interested in reading it, here’s a link.
Comment by Stace Johnson — May 16, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
Ah, yes, the days when blogs were rants, browsers were Mosaic (or lynx), and email was a complicated relay starting with That Guy Whose Local BBS You Dial Directly Into Who Happens To Be A Node On The PODS Backbone. Or something like that. I think I rather owe my marriage to one of those nodes, but that’s another story…
I’m not 100% sure that Phelps attended Falwell’s funeral to picket it or to actually show his respects. Apparently there was a press release at godhatesfags.com but I couldn’t bear to visit the website.
The Drudge Report had no such quibbles, however. Apparently Falwell didn’t hate Jews, Catholics, and homosexuals enough for Phelps’s liking.
Phelps is an odd duck. Read the Drudge report further, and you get to mention of the WBC’s video “God Hates The World” (sung to the tune of “We Are The World”). Apparently the message is that we’re all bound for hell and it’s too late to do anything about it. In which case… what’s Phelps’s point? What good does he think he’s doing? I can only conclude that he doesn’t think he’s doing good–he’s just doing the nyah-nyah neener-neener dance. And he’s somewhat blind to how that makes him as guilty of pride as anyone else.
A regular at Making Light was heard to say of the WBC, “These people worship Cthulu! They think that God hates us all and will send us all to hell–and they want to be first!” I’m hard-pressed to find anything to disagree with there.
Comment by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little — May 20, 2007 @ 4:41 pm