My 5 minutes of Jerry Falwell

Yesterday afternoon the temperature outside was a blistering 92 degrees, so it was a perfect day to sit inside, soak in the AC, and listen to the Sunday political spin masters doing their thing. Unfortunately, the most vile and vitriolic of all the Sunday politicos that I viewed was not found on Meet the Press, or The Week with George Stephanopoulus, but instead came from the pie-hole of the Reverend Jerry Falwell from the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Reverend Falwell caught my eye during an early morning channel surf session. I said to myself, hell why not, listen to what the guys has to say for 5 minutes, what could it hurt? Well, about 30 seconds into my 5 minutes, I remembered why Jerry Falwell likely has more allegiance to the RNC than he does to Jesus Christ. Though I'm a bit foggy on Falwell's exact wording, he essentially pontificated something along these lines:

We know the evils (or maybe threat was the word?) of liberalism in our Country. But liberalism like Howard Dean is not the only threat to our Country, inaction is an equally grave threat. Evangelicals and Christians who claim to be righteous, but do nothing/little to combat these threats of liberalism, are equally responsible for the acts of liberals...

Ok, so I guess the message was suppose to be if you think your a true Christian, then you need to do everything within your ability to squash liberalism, and reject anything remotely associated with the democratic party, or your nothing more than a closet Jane Fonda. When you consider Falwell's hate filled misogynistic post 9/11 tirade, the 5 minute portion of Falwell's sermon that I viewed on Sunday was mild. But scary all the same.

Maybe I live in a bubble, but what shocked me was Falwell's open criticism of the DNC's Howard Dean. Falwell didn't even make an attempt to use the "wink, hint, hint" when discussing the "evil" democrats, he just simple called out Dean's name. I was a bit shocked. Maybe you could make the counterpoint that maybe, in some hypothetical church, in Boulder or Berkeley, a minister is calling out the RNC's Ken Mellman, and telling his/her clergy about the evils of extreme conservatism. Possible I guess? But unlikely.

Regardless, this hypothetical church probably doesn't get regional television coverage to spew its politically motivated ideas in the name of God, whereas Falwell does. It appears to me that individuals like Falwell feel completely immune to charges of political partisanship (hence loss of their tax exempt status) , and therefore don't mind one bit blatantly talking politics at the pulpit (or as in Falwell's case, intolerance and hate). Regardless of political affiliation, I feel that blatant political pandering by the church is wrong. Period. (Guess I'm shit out of luck these days!)

I have no doubt in my mind that if it were 40 years earlier, Jerry Fallwell and all his righteous "conservative" colleagues would have told the world about the evils of integration to our society, and how the evil liberals are destroying the fabric of the USA through forced integration. (Oh, wait a minute, Falwell did oppose integration!) Now Falwell lives in a different era, but it's still the same hate, regardless of how you look at it. Praise the lord!