Remembering Falwell

Was out to lunch at Cici's when word came over the idiot box that Falwell's ticket had in fact been punched. Fox News currently has nonstop coverage, as if Falwell was some kind of head of state (and I guess in many ways he was), and naturally, spinning a complete hagiography. Just as naturally, there was no mention of what you're going to read here. Remember that the preacherman who's being hailed as "compassionate" by Fox's army of sycophants once made the compassionate remark that "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being." Guess that must be some of that Christian Love™ we keep hearing about.

Ganked from the ACT UP site: A partial transcript of Falwell and Robertson on The 700 Club, September 13, 2001:

JERRY FALWELL: And I agree totally with you that the Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we've been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters — the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats — what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact — if, in fact — God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population.

JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well yes.

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. 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."

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

JERRY FALWELL: Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged". In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time — calling upon God.

PAT ROBERTSON: Amen!

Falwell later attempted an insincere apology for these remarks.

Another brilliant insight from the Falwellian Hit Parade was his famous remark about the Antichrist: "Who will the Antichrist be? I don't know. Nobody else knows. Is he alive and here today? Probably. Because when he appears during the Tribulation period he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course he'll be Jewish. Of course he'll pretend to be Christ. And if in fact the Lord is coming soon, and he'll be an adult at the presentation of himself, he must be alive somewhere today."

Aaaaand — cue another insincere apology.

Then we get around to Falwell's ludicrous antiscience ravings, such as the time he dismissed global warming as "Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus" from evangelism to environmentalism. Let's see...here we have a majority of the world's scientists agreeing that human activity has led to measurable climate change, we have Al Gore appearing in an intensively researched documentary bringing these facts to the public, and this is in turn dismissed by a clown who thought it was all a big prank on the part of a mythical being with horns and a pitchfork and a pointy tail. Does lunacy or idiocy describe it better? Discuss.

I'd like to think that things will change with Falwell's passing. But of course, fundamentalist tribalism, hate and intolerance, and its concomitant superstitious tomfoolery will continue unabated. Who will check out next — Pat, Tim, DJK — and how many contortions will the lapdogs in the mainstream media twist themselves into, to convince viewers of what shining examples of unimpeachable rectitude they were?