(no subject)
May. 16th, 2007 05:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusJerry Falwell is dead. And I'm bracing myself for all the glurgy encomiums that accompany the death of any famous person.
Old enemies will come out of the wordwork, saying how much they admired the strength of his conviction, and newspapers will wax praise of the empire he built from preaching in an abandoned factory in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Me, I'm with Voltaire: "To the living we owe our respect, to the dead we owe only the truth."
Falwell founded the religious right. Until him, religious conservatives rarely meddled in politics, at least not as a movement, because they considered it spiritually corrupting.
Falwell fought gay and lesbian equality right from the beginning, as well as women's equality. I lay the blame at his feet for the movement he started, and that movement is responsible for the bombing of abortion clinics, and the increase in anti-gay violence in the US. He declared "AIDS is God's punishment" -- he wanted us to die.
His movement's first great victory was the disaster that was Reagan. And it's still going strong. In 2004, his movement mobilized fears of same-sex marriage to help put Bush in the White House for a second term.
His movement has spread out to every corner of the English-speaking world, where it remains a bulwark against progress, compassion, and human decency. Their belief in the apocalypse has led them to encourage nuclear war and ecological devastation.
Nowadays, his disciples run the most powerful country in the world, and in other places (like Canada) run Trojan Horse candidates to get social conservatives elected without the public knowing.
His movement is nothing more than a factory for evils. The truth is, the world is a little better off today without him. Too bad it didn't happen 30 years ago, before the damage was done.
Old enemies will come out of the wordwork, saying how much they admired the strength of his conviction, and newspapers will wax praise of the empire he built from preaching in an abandoned factory in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Me, I'm with Voltaire: "To the living we owe our respect, to the dead we owe only the truth."
Falwell founded the religious right. Until him, religious conservatives rarely meddled in politics, at least not as a movement, because they considered it spiritually corrupting.
Falwell fought gay and lesbian equality right from the beginning, as well as women's equality. I lay the blame at his feet for the movement he started, and that movement is responsible for the bombing of abortion clinics, and the increase in anti-gay violence in the US. He declared "AIDS is God's punishment" -- he wanted us to die.
His movement's first great victory was the disaster that was Reagan. And it's still going strong. In 2004, his movement mobilized fears of same-sex marriage to help put Bush in the White House for a second term.
His movement has spread out to every corner of the English-speaking world, where it remains a bulwark against progress, compassion, and human decency. Their belief in the apocalypse has led them to encourage nuclear war and ecological devastation.
Nowadays, his disciples run the most powerful country in the world, and in other places (like Canada) run Trojan Horse candidates to get social conservatives elected without the public knowing.
His movement is nothing more than a factory for evils. The truth is, the world is a little better off today without him. Too bad it didn't happen 30 years ago, before the damage was done.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-16 02:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-16 04:40 pm (UTC)These days, the social argument is more often raised: it's cruel to the families.
But this man was a monster. I'm only thankful he never gained any foothold on political power, though many of his followers have. Any family he might have must have a high tolerance for hatred.
I'm also glad he stuck around long enough to become an embarrassment to his movement. After the Tinky Winky and the 9/11 speeches, he was no longer invited to speak at Republican conventions.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 04:47 pm (UTC)On a cheerier note (though I suppose Falwell's demise is also quite cheery), I have your belated birthday present sitting all wrapped up and ready to post and no current address - could you e-mail me your snail mail address? Do you have my gmail address? It's my first and last name (no spaces or underscores) @gmail.com.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 11:16 pm (UTC)And that would be a funny email address. I always wanted to write a story about an athiest and a fundamentalist who wind up in some incredibly weird afterlife -- populated, maybe, by friendly frog people who feed them nutrious but tasteless green slime in the name of the Great Turtle.
The story would largely revolve around their shock.