If you can get a report from just how he was received at the pearly gates, I would like to hear it.

What makes you think he went to the pearly gates?

I think it will be fascinating to see how this plays out during tonight's GOP presidential debate. Prominent deaths like this seem mostly to be flash-in-the-pan media events, but in this case the eventual nominee is going to be making remarks tonight that will be a part of a very permanent public record. It seems unlikely that genuflection to Falwell, practically a requisite tonight, will play very well with the general voting population next fall.

and not even one word of sympathy for the man's family ... classy, Adele.

and not even one word of sympathy for the man's family ... classy, Adele.

Our sympathies to his family.

Now, to quote the good reverend himself on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: "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."

Reverand Fallwell made his remarks on September 13, 2001.

Yeah, on that whole question of sympathy to the man's family...

Am I a bad person if I don't feel that bad that he died? He was a bigot. He thought AIDS was God's punishment to gay people for their "sin." He called Nelson Mandela a terrorist and Desmond Tutu a phony. I can't say specifically that he had blood on his hands, though it's not hard at all for me to believe that some kid out there suffered because of what Fallwell said constantly about the evil of being gay.

I'm not glad that he died but I don't think he was a force for good in the world at all. So yeah, sympathy to the man's family. But I feel worse about the five soldiers that have died already today in Iraq.

He may not have been the true founder of the Moral Majority, but Falwell does get mentioned in the Dead Kennedys song "Moral Majority". Indeed, he was the last surviving referent from the song's first chorus, after the passing of Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms.

That leaves Phylis Schlafly and Anita Bryant as survivors. The song's reference to the late Terry Dolan is, sadly, his only lasting legacy. That, and NCPAC's campaign finance shenanigans.

All reports are that his family loved him and he loved them. For them, this is a tragedy.

For the rest of the world, one can only think that we are richer for the loss of Falwell's hatred and anger. He coarsened our culture and our politics. He strengthened the worst in us and weakened the best.

Falwell's demise = one less field general on Eric Rudolph's side of the culture wars.

Re: Grumpy

Helms is still with us. Last I read a couple of years back he's in a nursing home in a state of delusion, not unlike a late stage AIDS patient. There was even a shout out and well wishes to him and his wife at last years tribute to Henry Hyde on C-Span.

here you go sunbeltjerry. i feel sorry for that bigot's family. i know i would have hated to have in mine.

here you go sunbeltjerry. i feel sorry for that bigot's family. i know i would have hated to have him in mine.

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