Comment about Falwell's death

A comment from my blog about Jerry Falwell's death:

Anonymous said...

What makes gays any better than Fred Phelps terrorizing gay funerals, etc. when they behave this way over Falwell's death?

I am an unabashed liberal. Not the new pansy-ish sort of liberal (e.g. John Kerry, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, etc) but I am proud to say that I am an old-school liberal. Think FDR and Harry Truman merged together and you got my idea of liberalism.

Inherent in that sort of liberalism is a strong populist streak. Which Jerry Falwell had in mind with his Moral Majority. And Jerry Falwell elevated Populism for his own devious purposes.

Sidenote: I just wish that Hell actually did exist so Jerry Falwell could be there with his fat ass popping and crackling in the fire.

My problem with the comment is that Fred Phelps is largely irrelevant in the political scene - he is a side show freak and nothing more in terms of the politic of today (or yesterday for that matter). However Jerry Falwell had political power. (Witness that CNN virtually STOPPED coverage of anything else when it was announced that Jerry Falwell died.) Not only did Jerry Falwell have the power but he USED it. He, and his minions, forced a secular Republican party into difficult conservative moral positions that have populist appeal but make America the pariah of the Western world. Let's think about a few of those:

1. Jerry Falwell was definitely a pro-lifer. Strong advocate that no person should be having an abortion (note supporting quote)

This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since "Roe v Wade."

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."

HOWEVER, I do not recall Jerry Falwell speaking out about the fact that PREGNANT WOMEN SMOKE. If you are so worried about the fetus, then send any woman to jail who smokes while pregnant.

2. Jerry Falwell had no tolerance for those who are not evangelical (note supporting quote):

If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.

That just speaks for itself.

3. Jerry Falwell used gay issues for his own agenda.

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

Now I am going to focus on this last quote specifically when thinking about how Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell are different. In the quote in the third point, just substitute "Jew" or "Negro" and you can see what type of Populism Jerry Falwell was preaching. AND HE WAS A FUCKING CHRISTIAN!!! Jerry Falwell used AIDS as a mark of god's judgement on our society for his own populist political ends. He used people (in the 1980s) who were being digested slowly by bacteria and fungi and covered in lesions to make a political point. These people who were already condemned to a horrible death now became a political prop for Jerry Falwell's populism.

Did Jerry Falwell show any compassion, as Christ would have, for these poor souls?

NO - Jerry Falwell used AIDS sufferers as a way to get more votes, hence, more power. Think about this, you have tens of thousands of young men dying in the 1980s and you cannot get the President to even say the word AIDS until 1987. Part of that is due to Jerry Falwell's socially conservative presence in Republican circles. This man was part of a fundamental shift that took conservatives from a secular, anti-government mindset of Barry Goldwater and pushed them into a Christian populist and activist mold.

Few people today have full-blown AIDS. But if you were to go back to the late 1980s and early 1990s and met a person with full blown AIDS, you would be looking at someone who is marked for a excrutiatingly painful death. And the government, with Jerry Falwell's political power, made sure that these people got NO help. None. Zip. Zero. These AIDS suffers got to die with a coating of fungus all down their throat. They died from sepsis. They went blind and suffered dementia. They were the exact sort of person that Christ showed compassion for. But not Jerry. Nope, in his actions he showed that compassion is for pussies.

Fred Phelps is just a warm up for witnessing the true evil that Jerry Falwell embodied because Fred Phelps is protesting people who are already dead. Jerry Falwell, by his political activities, is complicit in the murder of tens of thousands of Americans who had AIDS.

I had a celebratory drink when I found out that Jerry Falwell was dead. He was a horrible human being and a total waste of flesh. Good riddance to bad rubbish.