Good riddance

Bigot, homophobe and arch-conservative, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, has shuffled off this mortal coil at last. What a shame there isn't a hell for him to go to. This is, after all, the man who founded the Moral Majority; who warned that the Teletubby Tinkie-Winkie was part of a homosexual propaganda campaign on the basis that he was purple and had a triangular antenna; who said that "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

Perhaps my favourite Falwell quote, though, is in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, when he said, "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'."

Falwell was also a racist: a segregationist Baptist preacher, who opposed interracial marriage and used the Bible to justify his position. In 1958, Falwell gave a sermon on segregation, stating that. "The true Negro does not want integration...He realizes his potential is far better among his own race... It will destroy our race eventually......It boils down to whether we are going to take God's Word as final." Admittedly as racism became less popular, he - publicly at least - changed his stance on segregation.

What a charming piece of work. Definitely someone that the world is better off without, I reckon.