Christ Weary, Part 2 (Fucking Falwell):
Sweet fuck, we are a Christ weary nation. As evangelicals prance about with "moral values" hard-ons, the rest of us are tired of those cocks being shoved in our faces. It's showing itself every time we turn around now, from the FCC's burning desire to eliminate sex from the airwaves to the refusal of CBS and NBC to air a commercial by the United Church of Christ about its inclusivity (meaning, you know, they don't hate fags) to the current debate over abortion policy. It's been going on for far too long, and one of the most visible faces of the hate of the religious right has been Jerry Falwell, a jowly Jesus jizz swallower who the Rude Pundit has been battling for the better part of two decades (and Falwell's been doing his thing for much longer). Sure, sure, there's more important "thinkers," as David Brooks pointed out yesterday, and, sure, sure, at the end of the day, the local preacher has more influence over a congregation than, say, James Dobson or Tim LaHaye, but Falwell's been out there, using Jesus for his own glorification for a long, long time now, so that, as Falwell wants, the Christian conservative movement's identity is symbiotic with his own.

Goddamn, the bullshit we've had to endure over the years since Falwell decided to weave politics and "religion" with the Moral Majority in the late 1970s. Falwell supported apartheid in South Africa, called Desmond Tutu "a phony," and urged his followers to buy Kruggerands back in the mid 1980s. In 1984, after Reagan let Falwell through the White House gates to pray with him, the good, loving preacher said, "The Democratic Party is largely controlled by the radical ideas of a dangerous minority - homosexuals, militant feminists, socialists, 'freeze-niks' and the like," while the Republican Party was devoted "to the liberation of the unborn" and its leaders were "God's instruments in rebuilding America." He said AIDS "could be God's judgement against a nation that chooses to live immorally." (And this leaves out so, so much hatred spewed by the Moral Majority and Falwell's other efforts.) We thought we had lost Falwell in the 90s. His influence over politics was waning. He was reduced to hawking tapes that alleged Bill Clinton was a murderer. Liberty University was almost bankrupt. And the 2000 campaign of George W. Bush shoved the evangelicals to the sidelines. But, lo and behold, one 9/11, and Falwell is back in the full-fledged spotlight, with his remark that abortion, feminism, and homosexuality caused the attack.

For many of us, we became fully cognizant of this fool, this figure of pomp and arrogance, this demented meatloaf during the Supreme Court case in 1988 when a unanimous court (including Rehnquist and Scalia) laughed out loud at Falwell's belief that he had been personally injured by a Hustler parody of him as a backwoods yahoo who fucked his mother in an outhouse. Said the man who had consigned gays to painful death, equated feminism with prostitution, and so many other kind, generous sentiments about Larry Flynt's parody: "I have never been incensed by a political cartoon or any other kind of a cartoon other than Mr. Flynt, when he suggested that as a minister of the Gospel that I have been involved incestuously with my late mother, who died at age 82 some years earlier, a godly woman whose memory has never been blemished by anyone, and when he suggested that my mother was a whore, a prostitute. I cannot imagine that any red-blooded male in any nation on earth not being incensed by that." The Falwell v. Flynt decision is what let's the Rude Pundit do what he does.

(More this afternoon, including what Falwell means now. Tomorrow: Fun with local preachers.)

Yesterday, the Rude Pundit asked you to send your stories of your confrontations, battles, and grapples with the religious right. And so far a couple dozen of you have responded with tales of woe about how Jesus may save, but his self-ordained reps on earth are just evil fuckers. Keep it coming. Send to rudepundit@yahoo.com.