Jerry Falwell was no friend of gays...
Some may see this as speaking ill of the dead. But Jerry Falwell, who died today at the age of 73, was a scary person as far as I'm concerned. This fundamentalist Baptist pastor, televangelist and conservative activist made a career out of extremist and offensive commentary, particularly in times of national and international crisis.
Here is an example of a comment two days after the 9/11 attacks that speaks volumes about the man: “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.”
During a TV debate in 1984, gay rights activist Jerry Sloan questioned Falwell about a homophobic remark that had been published a year earlier in the Advocate. Sloan charged that Falwell had called the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches "brute beasts" and repeated the exact quote, arguing that Falwell had said, “Thank God, this vile and Satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven!” Falwell denied ever having made the remarks even though Sloan had a tape recording of him saying the same thing on Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour."
Then there was the Telletubbies nonsense:
In 1999,I Falwell wrote the article “Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet” for the National Liberty Journal and cautioned parents that the purple Teletubby character was in fact a homosexual role model because it had the voice of a boy but carried a purse. “He is purple – the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle—the gay-pride symbol,” Falwell wrote.
So, as the tributes come pouring in for the man who a dying Tammy Faye Messner says stole her and former husband's ministry from under them, I will remember the things he did that don't at all seem very Christian-like.
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Greg Hernandez authored Out In Hollywood for the Daily News from June 2006 to February 2009. He can now be found at Greg In Hollywood: www.greginhollywood.com
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