Sure, I’m a week behind in jumping on the “Talk about Jerry Falwell now that he’s dead” bandwagon. I debated posting something the day the news debuted, but didn’t. I could claim the delay was “out of respect for the dead” or some such nonsense, but honestly, what really factored into the delay were a) my addiction to Lord of the Rings Online, and b) that I was really, really sick of hearing about his death by about day 2.
Falwell was a human being and as such, I will not celebrate or glorify his death in any way.
Just because I’m not actively glad he’s dead, though, doesn’t mean I will ever celebrate or glorify his life in any way, either.
The man was a hateful, bigoted, sexist, bloated, bloviating theocrat who built an economic and political empire on the beliefs of the gullible. A snake oil salesman with his own Home Shopping Network. The intertubes this week have been jam-packed with choice examples of Jerry quotes where he blames the world’s woes on women, jews, liberals, gays, Teletubbies, and basically anyone and everyone else who doesn’t believe the world is 6,000 years old and the national anthem should be changed to “Onward Christian Soldiers”.
My favorite quote of the week (and the inspiration for the title of this entry) was uttered by Christopher Hitchens during a FAUX Noise interview on Hannity & Silent Bob: “If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox.”
There’s little to say about him that hasn’t already been said, so instead I leave you, oh search engines who are the only ones reading this, with a song in honor of the angry, jealous, vengeful God in whose name Falwell preached his hate.