An open letter to the late Jerry Falwell

Well, buh-bye, Jerry Falwell.

Thanks for tearing the country in two, you hate-mongering jackass.

Buh-bye to your intolerance.
Buh-bye to your fear-mongering.
Buh-bye to your judgmentalism.
Buh-bye to your divisiveness.
Buh-bye to your racism.
Buh-bye to your sanctimony.
Buh-bye to your sense of supremecy.

Jer, let's take a trip down Memory Lane with the good folks at The Carpetbagger Report :

March 1980: Falwell tells an Anchorage rally about a conversation with President Carter at the White House. Commenting on a January breakfast meeting, Falwell claimed to have asked Carter why he had “practicing homosexuals” on the senior staff at the White House. According to Falwell, Carter replied, “Well, I am president of all the American people, and I believe I should represent everyone.” When others who attended the White House event insisted that the exchange never happened, Falwell responded that his account “was not intended to be a verbatim report,” but rather an “honest portrayal” of Carter’s position.

My notes: Apparently, Jimmy Carter once said speaking as a Christian, "Falwell can go straight to hell."

August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,” he told reporters, “that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.” After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “God hears the prayers of all persons…. God hears everything.”

My notes: Perhaps someone reminded him Jesus was a Jew, and that perhaps God did answer the prayers of Jews.

July 1984: Falwell is forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in Sacramento, Falwell denied calling the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.” When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did so, Falwell refused to pay and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was forced to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.

My notes: So reneging on a promise to pay a debt you owe is a totally forgivable offense to a Christian judge?

October 1987: The Federal Election Commission fines Falwell for transferring $6.7 million in funds intended for his ministry to political committees.

My notes: Jerry.... Naughty...

February 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a $200,000 jury award to Falwell for “emotional distress” he suffered because of a Hustler magazine parody. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, usually a Falwell favorite, wrote the unanimous opinion in Hustler v. Falwell, ruling that the First Amendment protects free speech.

My notes: *gasp* Rehnquist was a Jew, too???

February 1993: The Internal Revenue Service determines that funds from Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour program were illegally funneled to a political action committee. The IRS forced Falwell to pay $50,000 and retroactively revoked the Old Time Gospel Hour’s tax-exempt status for 1986-87.

My notes: Didn't learn your lesson the first time, Jer?

March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a “Christian nation,” Falwell gives a sermon saying, “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.”

My notes: Oh, I have SOOOO much to say about this one. See below.

1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his “Old Time Gospel Hour” to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton — among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,” Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.”

My notes: My old neighbors were sucked into this bearing-false-witness episode. They were so bamboozled by this one, I felt sorry for them. Well, they sell Amway -- maybe a little poetic justice at play here.

November 1997: Falwell accepts $3.5 million from a front group representing controversial Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon to ease Liberty University’s financial woes.

My notes: That's Muliple Marriage Moon, owner of the Washington Times, and all-around nut-job.

April 1998: Confronted on national television with a controversial quote from America Can Be Saved!, a published collection of his sermons, Falwell denies having written the book or had anything to do with it. In the 1979 work, Falwell wrote, “I hope to 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!” Despite Falwell’s denial, Sword of the Lord Publishing, which produced the book, confirms that Falwell wrote it.

My notes: A little white lie, Reverend?

January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.”

My notes: What do you mean "he"?

February 1999: Falwell becomes the object of nationwide ridicule after his National Liberty Journal newspaper issues a “parents alert” warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,” might be gay.

My notes: This one still makes me laugh.

September 2001: Falwell blames Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “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.’”

My notes: Actually, all we have to do is point a finger in Bush 41's face, who left American troops and bases in Saudi Arabia after the first Persian Gulf war, pissing off Osama bin Laden and his pals.

November 2005: Falwell spearheads campaign to resist “war on Christmas.”

My notes: Poor, persecuted Christmas. Perhaps one day we'll all be able to celebrate Christmas openly and without fear of never finding a parking space at the mall.

February 2007: Falwell describes global warming as a conspiracy orchestrated by Satan, liberals, and The Weather Channel.

My notes: You said it with a straight face, too. I'm duly impressed!


Ah... facts are so... liberating.

For the record, Jerry, the Treaty of Tripoli signed by President John Adams in 1797 (rather recent to the time of our nation's founding and Adams being one of those founders) documents in actual words that the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. Any legitimate historian will tell you that Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Adams, etc. were deists and adamant about this nation's government remaining secular.

In fact, here is a quote from John Adams: "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

Here's another one, Jerry -- a quote from Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. In his Autobiography, referencing the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom: "Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."

Hmmm... looks like our Founding Fathers were *gasp* liberals.

Shoulda paid attention in history class, Jer. But then again, I guess revisionist history is (was) your thing. So many questionable characters like you enjoy using lies, half-truths and exaggerations to create fear, misunderstanding and hate, brainwashing too many good people into adopting a dogma of racial and religious supremecy and intolerance.

I'd say "Burn in hell, Jerry", but I don't believe in hell. What I do believe is God took one look at you, crooked His/Her/Its finger at you, directing you to follow, and has taken your sorry ass to that great Woodshed in the Sky to impress His/Her/Its true opinions on you. Hope He/She/It made you cut your own switch.

I also hope Barry Goldwater is standing by in the Afterlife to kick your ass like he wanted to do to you in life.

Interesting story about Mohandas Gandhi, and I always think of you, Jer, when I hear it. A missionary met with Gandhi, asking him, "Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?"

Ghandi replied, "Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Pssst. I think he meant 'Christians' like you.

Rest in peace, Jerry. I hope you're a hell of a lot wiser now than you were here on this plane of existence.