For those of you not in the know, the Rev. Jerry Falwell died Tuesday, probably of heart failure, in Lynchburg, Va. Falwell, a well-known TV evangelist who founded the Moral Majority, was 73 at the time of his death. We will all remember Falwell, but unfortunately most of our memories will not be fond ones.
Falwell started his first church in 1956 with just 35 members. He soon created a religious empire that included 24,000 members and his own Baptist College, Liberty University. His use of television was revolutionary, and it changed the way American media influenced religion.
According to a May 15 article in The New York Times, Falwell was first interested in politics when, in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled the right to abortions in the United States. Outraged at this, Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979, and many credit this with the rise of Christian conservatism, something that has drastically changed the way Americans vote and their core moral beliefs.
Falwell has always been a controversial speaker, and the many things that came out of his mouth were shockingly distasteful and ignorant. He has disrespected almost every minority you could think of. His remarks after Sept. 11 essentially blamed feminists, homosexuals and liberals for bringing on the terrorist attacks. In ’99, Falwell claimed that the Antichrist was a male Jew. Falwell has condemned Martin Luther King Jr. and referred to the Civil Rights Movement as the “civil wrongs movement” and has opposed sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid regime in the ’80s, according to The Nation’s Web site.
Falwell was also the one to infamously claim that the purple, purse carrying “Teletubbie” was gay, something so completely irrelevant it is shocking that anyone actually listened to him. Falwell claimed that “Tinky Winky” was a gay role model and morally damaging to children. That is conservative brainwashing at its best.
Falwell waged war against Larry Flynt, the founder of Hustler Magazine, who he sued for $45 million because of a parody advertisment. In the ad, Falwell appears drunk and is quoted as saying he lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Falwell lost the lawsuit, but he won plenty of publicity and $200,000 for emotional distress. Ever heard of a joke, Mr. Falwell? If everyone got that angry over a simple parody, our own president would be a millionaire right now.
After the 2004 presidential election, it was evident that Christian conservatives had taken over the country and that family values were more important than, say, national security. Although this was disheartening to some (mostly those on either coast), Falwell thrived from it. He formed the Faith and Values Coalition and sought to appoint more anti-abortion judges, create a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and attract more conservatives into office.
Although not all of these things were accomplished, the mere idea that Falwell wanted the entire country ruled by conservative Christians is completely disturbing. We would no longer have a democracy. Instead, it would become a dictatorship, where everyone must worship the same god and have the same political ideologies. But that’s not the United States, and Falwell should have realized that.
In the end, Matt Foreman, the execute director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, put it best: “…[Falwell] was someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”
It really is too bad, because someone with that much power could have done so much good. But instead, he used it for own political and religious agenda. May Falwell rest in peace and may his sins never be forgotten.
