Tag: Jerry Falwell

Mr. Foot-In-Mouth on the Dixie Chicks

Well, I guess he should know about putting his foot in his mouth in public — Jerry Falwell has weighed in on the Dixie Chicks controversy.

Of course, I don’t think the woman who said this,

Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.

. . . need a lesson in propriety from the man who said this,

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.’

Also of note is that Falwell apologized for those comments — except now he says that was “not so much as an apology” as simply a clarification. I.e. Fallwell really means what he says above, he just thinks it was probably not a good idea to say so just a few days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Source:


Falwell criticizes Dixie Chick’s anti-Bush remarks. USA Today, April 30, 2003.

Did I Miss the Falwell Memo?

I have read more commentary on the whole Falwell “Mohammed was a terrorist” statement and the ensuing riot in India than I probably should have, and I still don’t get it.

Time out here for a second. Over my short adult life I’ve seen “Piss Christ” defended on national television, seen plays that depicted Jesus as gay, and read book as assigned reading material in classes that described Christianity as an oppressive religion concoted by patriarchal forces. Hell, we live in a country where people can and do refer to the president as a dictator, thief, traitor and even worse.

But all of a sudden when Falwell calls Mohammed a terrorist everyone is shocked and amazed like this is something outside the norm of American discourse? We finally find a sacred cow in America and it turns out to be Islam? I don’t think so.

And as far as the riot in India, how hard is that to explain? They were nutty religious extremists. That’s what nutty religious extremists do — they kill other nutty religious extremists over things that make no sense to otherwise sane people.

Emo Philips gets the last word here.

Defending Falwell

And in time for the 9/11 anniversary, TownHall.Com features Ben Shapiro’s idiotic column defending Jerry Falwell’s comments about how 9/11 was the fault of homosexuals, abortion supporters and secular humanists. Shapiro writes,

Jerry Falwell said after Sept. 11 that abortionists, feminists, the gays and lesbians who promote homosexuality as a natural lifestyle, the American Civil Liberties Union and all those who try to secularize America (in short, the PC crowd) bear some responsibility for Sept. 11.

. . .

In the cosmic sense, Falwell was correct. We have tossed God from the public schools. We have ignored his morality in favor of subjective man-made values. We cannot expect God to maintain his protection of us if we exile him.

How long before Salon.Com scoops this guy up?

Now That’s Suppressing Dissent

When Hillary Clinton appeared at a 9/11 fundraiser last October, the crowd audibly booed her. VH-1, which broadcast the concert, replaced the booing with sounds of cheering and applause. Now, according to the Media Research Center, those fake cheers will also be on the DVD version of the concert.

Not surprising considering VH-1’s sister music network MTV recently highlighted those people who maintained after the terrorist attacks that America had brought the attacks on itself. Of course, the only person quoted to that effect was Jerry Falwell. Since Viacom’s busy editing out Hillary’s boos, why not pretend that the Blame America crowd is only on the extreme right.

The Religious Right, the Nutty Left and Everybody In Between

After I posted about that horrific child murder in Chicago, Seth Dillingham noticed that the news story seemed awfully slanted against religion. Seth writes,

So many people crow about the unfair, imbalanced influence that the “religious right” has on the U.S. political system. The “religious right” political bodies bug me too, much of the time, but what really saddens me is this apparent feeling that they shouldn’t be heard at all.

What’s always amazed me about the “religious right” is how if you repackage the exact same ideas in a liberal package, people don’t even seem to notice. So if Jerry Falwell came out and said we need to start censoring movies to save our decadent culture he would be blasted for it and every pundit with a pen (or word processor) would be wringing their hands about the influence of the religious right.

But last year when both Al Gore and Ralph Nader indicated their desire to see the government step in to do something about Hollywood, pretty much no one cared. If Jerry Falwell says that the Teletubbies promote homosexuality, he’s headline news and the laughing stock of the country, but when a liberal group blasts GI Joe and other toys for promoting violence to children the news media generally laps it up.

Religious Wackos Living in Glass Houses…

Jerry Falwell is suing the state of Virginia and the city of Lynchburg, Virginia, claiming that laws limiting the amount of land that churches can own is a violation of the separation of church and state. Isn’t this the same Jerry Falwell who has repeatedly said that he doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state?

On the other hand, he’s going to win. It’s a bit absurd that Virginia has a law setting a cap on how much property a church can own. Don’t they have better things to worry about?

(Via Morons.Org)