Catching Up With Determined Men 4 - Falwell and the Gays

Let's start with Matt Foreman's eulogy:

Matt Foreman, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, extended condolences to those close to Falwell, but added: "Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America's anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation's appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation."

And here's Cory Doctorow's eulogy:

Bigoted religious phony Jerry Falwell went to hell today. Voices of American Sexuality collected some of the stupidest things he said while he was befouling the living world....

“AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”...

“[Homosexuals are] brute beasts...part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”

And another eulogy was delivered a little north of here:

About a dozen people gathered in the Castro District of San Francisco Tuesday evening to mark the death of Jerry Falwell....

Michael Petrelis organized the so-called "anti-memorial" and said gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders said would speak out about Falwell's past efforts to demonize the gay community.

A makeshift grave was surrounded by an assortment of signs, rainbow flags and teletubbies dolls at Castro and 18th streets.

One signed read, "Falwell dies, but the rainbow lives."

At least one person danced on the makeshift grave.

Ah, but Fred Phelps (remember his church?) is also criticizing Falwell's views on gays, as reported by Chainsaw Monkey.

WBC [Westboro Baptist Church] to picket the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell - at Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Virginia - in religious protest and warning: "God is not mocked!,, Gal. 6:7. God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and all such Arminian heretic preachers - from fundamentalist evangelicals to openly gay Episcopalians and pedophile Catholics - all of whom have created the Satanic Sodomite Zeitgeist wherein America has irreversibly gone the way of Sodom.

There is little doubt that Falwell split Hell wide open the instant he died. The evidence is compelling, overwhelming, and irrefragable. To wit:

1 Falwell was a true Calvinistic Baptist when he was a young preacher in Springfield, Missouri; and sold his soul to Free-Willism (Arminianism) for lucre.

2. Falwell bitterly and viciously attacked WBC because of WBC9s faithful Bible preaching - thereby committing the unpardonable sin - otherwise known as the sin gainst the Holy Ghost.

3. Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, Etc. All for lucre - making him guilty of their sins.

Jim mentions Mel White (and other issues):

I’ll remember Rev. Falwell as a kind and generous man with an easy laugh and a better vision for America than the nation seemed to have for itself. I was never his primary counselor or a close friend, but I was nearby and involved when media relished reports in one of his publications on Tinky Winky, the gay Teletubbie (blown out of context, but he deserved the firestorm because he refused our counsel to ignore media requests for comment).

And I helped him write his late apology for his callous comments following the attacks of 9/11, when he failed to see that it was time for a pastor’s voice, not a prophet’s rage.

I remember his willingness to reach out to Mel White, his former ghostwriter who began an organization to extend the voice of gay Christians. It was hard for him to stretch toward this natural adversary, but he did so when many others would not.

Let's close with a blogger's summary of Anderson Cooper's interview of Mel White after Falwell's death:

Anderson asks what went through [Mel's] mind when he heard Falwell died. Mel was sad, but also wished he'd gotten to hear him apologize to gays. Anderson wonders if Falwell hated gays. Mel thinks he was actually sincere in that he thought homosexuality was a threat to the nation....

Anderson then notes that Falwell would say his words weren't hurting gays and lesbians, but Mel said it wasn't true. Mel then tells us, "I have buried so many young gay people who have killed themselves from Christian families who have been influenced directly and indirectly by this rhetoric. And I have buried a lot of young gays who have been bashed to death by gay people -- by anti-gay people who quote these guys, who quote the Scriptures, to give them a reason, an excuse for killing us."...Anderson then brings up a story where Mel was riding with Falwell and there were protesters. Mel tells us that Falwell said he loved the gay protesters because of the attention they brought him. He then recounts how he made gays the scapegoat and got people to send him money, yet he insists Falwell was sincere in his beliefs....

gay

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