I was kind of surprised that there is one thing we could agree on, but in fact I found one: faith should not be purposely excluded from political discourse. (Note: Jerry initially said Christians getting involved in politics would be punished by God or something, but changed his tune and founded the Moral Majority in the 80s.)
How can you separate your spiritual beliefs from your political ones? Your morals and your values and your faith shape the way you think, right?
I appreciate the late Mr. Falwell’s efforts to empower his community to help shape the political landscape in the way they thought was best for them by advocating policies consistent with their faith. Born of that was today’s powerful and influential Religious Right.
That’s about where my agreement with and appreciation of Mr. Falwell ends. At the intersection of bigotry and intolerance, where he has set up his “Cup of Hatred $.50″ stand, is where our paths diverge. That’s where I get on the bus of humanity (I realize I’m wearing this metaphor really thin).
One of the defintions that Wiktionary has for humanity is “the quality of being benevolent.” So that says to me that humanity is the diposition to do good and to possess love for mankind. That’s my religion.
Practices of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and the like don’t mean much to me. Humanity does. I have faith in humanity. I believe that people possess love for mankind and want to do good for their community.
Judging by what he’s said throughout his successful career as a televangilist and political activist, I’d say Mr. Falwell is not a huge fan of humanity. Here are some of, what I’ll call, Jerry’s greatest blows to humanity (you can find a well-composed list in Mark Morford’s recent post on SFGate.com):
If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.
I listen to feminists and all these radical gals — most of them are failures. They’ve blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men — that’s their problem.
Someone must not be afraid to say, ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ America! If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way … and our nation will pay a terrible price!
Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.
Where would humanity be if we–Christians and non-Christians alike–didn’t ask questions? Oh, there I go with my questions. Son-of-a…that means I’m not a like a slave or soldier thus not Christian thus a failure as a human being. Crap.
