Jerry Falwell: founder of the moral majority, notorious racist, bigot, and fundamentalist extraordinaire. His passing is doubtlessly a relief to many people who feel hatred and fundamentalism are like a cancer on the side of a nation that deserves much better. A man responsible for claiming that "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals" is likely to find more enemies than friends, yet I feel as though the celebration of his death is in poor taste. If it is not in poor taste, then it is certainly detrimental to the health of the individuals who find themselves diametrically opposed to the kind of propaganda and pornography Falwell was so fond of spewing. Falwell may have celebrated the plight of homosexuals infected with AIDS, but that is not cause enough to take joy in his death. What deserves judgment and our contempt now that Falwell is in the ground is the legacy he has left behind and the kind of political battleground he helped to spawn.
Falwell enjoyed seeking blame where blame was least conspicuous. He blamed the ACLU, lesbians, gay men, feminists, abortionists, and "pagans" for the events of September 11th, 2001, claiming that it was the will of God punishing this country for its tolerance. This was typical of Falwell's approach to gaining political leverage: if he could assault his political enemies by use of an unrelated tragedy, he would. If he could use a politically controversial topic as a means for disseminating his own ethical agenda, he would. If he could belittle an entire group of people in order to win popularity among his peers in a public space, he would. His paranoia often got the best of him, leading him to make such statements as, "The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews" and, "Textbooks are Soviet propaganda." He had no shame; he almost uniformly ignored rational argument in all his political maneuvering and took the opportunity to land a low-blow whenever it best served his "moral majority." Some might say he was opposed to free speech (as evidenced by his legal battle with Hustler's Larry Flynt) and to basic human rights (as evidenced by his attitude towards any non-heterosexual, non-Christian individual). What are we to make of a man that stated, "I think the Moslem faith teaches hate" and "I am a Christian" and , "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being?"
His agenda was built on a kind of tunnel-vision that prevented him from acknowledging one of the most important aspects of his religious upbringing: love thy neighbor. He was incapable of following this, what Christ enumerated as one of the most important commandments (see Matthew 22:36-40), second only to "love the lord, your God, with all your heart."
Of course he apologized numerous times for his language, though it was difficult to tell if he was sincere. Much of what Falwell had to say sounded suspiciously like hate speech, the kind of speech one would expect to hear from hate groups notorious for their religious and racial intolerance. Time passed as it does and, with few exceptions, Falwell slowly fell out of the limelight in the years leading up to his death. It would be nice if such a silence were sufficient for excusing Falwell from his blatantly hateful, narrow-sighted, almost fascist commentary. It isn't, however, and what Falwell has given to the world looks dangerous, spiteful, and woefully misguided. He has inspired a generation of individuals that look up to him, many of them aspiring to political office through the gates of Liberty University, the school he founded. If his example is to be followed, then this nation can expect more egregious attacks on non-fundamentalist politics and organizations, all in the name of a religious agenda that doesn't quite follow the dogma it proudly espouses.
The secular world isn't alone in its criticism of Falwell's policy and tactics, several of the Christian faith have expressed concern over what effect Falwell has had on this nation. The following is taken from a CNN article covering Falwell's death:
"He made it comfortable for churches to get actively involved in politics," says the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "His strategy will be continued by his would-be successors -- a focus on hot-button issues like gay marriage (rather than significant moral issues like child poverty and health care), and an eagerness to make outrageous statements to the media, in order to build a religious-political empire."
Falwell began his career vehemently protesting any relationship between politics and religious orders, but in the end found it to be most profitable to encourage that relationship. All of these negative things to say about Falwell and yet I can't celebrate his death . I suppose part of the lesson is that you get what you give: Falwell lacked compassion, lacked tolerance, and often celebrated the defeat of those politically opposed to his views, no matter how relevant or compelling his opponent's point of view may have been. He was representative of everything that's wrong with modern American politics: he was always casting stones, so it is of little surprise that stones are being cast back on his grave ten-fold. Hatred begets the same, as does intolerance.
There's plenty of reasons to dislike Falwell and what he stood for, plenty of reasons to feel sick in the face of his intolerance, but to return him the favor is to suffer the same evil he suffered. His death is not the kind to be celebrated; celebrations are meant to cement someone or something in our memory and it would perhaps be best to let his death pass in silence and to let his memory fall away as quickly as possible. Even Larry Flynt found something to like about Falwell, making him a bigger man than I am in many ways. I used to think I would like nothing more than to see Falwell pass on, but his death does us little good because his intolerance is going to survive him for years to come.
So I'll make a suggestion: forget him, for his legacy and his policies are eminently forgettable, adolescent, and gravely uninformed. He's taken all of his errors to his grave and in the end there's a far better judge waiting for him than any of us could hope to be. If you're religious, rest easy knowing that God will take him care of him as only God can. If you are not religious, be relieved knowing that history, too, will take care of Falwell, but only if we commence with forgetting him by surpassing him and pushing his evils out of our society.
Falwell had a family and friends and no matter how evil I want to think Falwell and his associates were, I can't imagine that they are so inhuman that his death has left them without grief.
I don't want to advocate anything for Falwell, I am not capable of forgiving him and I'm not suggesting that anyone should attempt that monumental task. Instead, I'd like to leave him, forget him, and let better judgment arrest his legacy and leave it in the dust where it belongs. Falwell has presented us with a challenge, one that will go a long way in bettering this country if we can succeed in answering it fully. Putting Falwell and his brand of politics to rest will give a whole new meaning to a very old epitaph: rest in peace.
Keeping that in mind, I'd like to wish his family, Falwell himself, and everyone he supported or hated, peace.
RIP, Jerry Falwell (Aug. 11, 1933 - May 15, 2007)"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule." -Buddha
