Author: Ophelia Benson

Fresh Air replayed an old interview with Jerry Falwell yesterday, in which Terri Gross asked one very good question, in fact the crucial question. Unfortunately it went right past or over Falwell; he either pretended not to get it, or really didn’t get it. Gross made one attempt to press the point, to straighten him out and thus get him to answer the real question rather than a bogus one, but it didn’t work, and she didn’t press it further. I wish she had, because it’s absolutely central. I wish everyone would press this question. As a matter of fact, come to think of it, it’s the same question (in a different form) that Dawkins asked of the homophobic preacher in ‘The Root of all Evil?’, and he too did not press it, and again, I wished he had, for the same reason. We’ve got to learn to keep pressing this question until we get a real answer – we’ve got to stop accepting non-answers and letting it go at that.

What question. This one. She asked if he ever had any doubts, then to explain her meaning further she pointed out that he had opposed the Civil Rights movement until about the mid-60s, when he changed his mind. He cut in to say that God had taught him; Gross cut in to say that she wasn’t asking him to defend his former views, that wasn’t the point, the point was that they had been one thing and then he changed his mind, so did not that lead him to think he could be wrong about something in the same way now? A blindingly obvious and essential question – and it simply went right past him and flopped harmlessly into the dust. It was immensely frustrating – because it gets to the heart of what is wrong with people like Falwell, and what is dangerous about their influence and power, and what is wrong with theocracy in general – and he not only didn’t answer, he seemed not even to understand it.

It’s so basic. If you got it wrong about Civil Rights, if God showed you that you’d been wrong and you changed your mind – how can you possibly know that you’re not wrong about (say) homosexuality or feminism now? What possible conceivable reason can you have for thinking you know that? What is it about what you know now that makes it fundamentally different from what you knew in 1959?

Nothing, Dr Falwell. Not one thing. What you think you know and what you think your God wants you to say is just your own entrenched opinion, just a human opinion like any other, mine, hers, his, theirs; it’s not God’s, it’s not God-endorsed, it’s not cosmic, it’s not Absolute, and it’s certainly not immune from error. That’s why people like you, who apparently can’t even allow that idea house room, are so damn dangerous. That’s why we hate you and fear you: because you’re not just wrong, you’re impervious to correction or argument or persuasion, and not only that but proud of it. Despite knowing and acknowledging that you have changed your mind in the past, you dress up your current opinions as God’s laws and make a virtue of refusing to doubt them. You’re a horror show, you and your gang.

This is distasteful.

Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of Jerry Falwell, a man who cherished faith, family, and freedom…Jerry lived a life of faith and called upon men and women of all backgrounds to believe in God…

Well, that’s one (major) reason atheists of the assertive type (for want of a better term) (even Anthony Gottlieb calls us ‘militant’ atheists, which I think is both pejorative and inaccurate, and unbecoming to a philosopher) get exasperated with theists of the assertive type. We don’t think grown-up people ought to ‘call upon’ people to believe in God, because there is no good reason to think ‘God’ exists, so calling upon us to believe in God amounts to calling upon us to abandon rational thought, and we don’t think that is a good or justified call.

Then there’s the alliterative faith, family, and freedom triplet; Bush’s idea of virtue. He said something similar at Miami Dade College a couple of weeks ago; similar but with an important difference:

At Miami Dade, you know firsthand the contributions that immigrants make to our country. You see every day the values of hard work, and family, and faith that immigrants bring.

Freedom swapped for hard work. Well duh – that’s what immigrants are for: to work hard at crap jobs for crap pay with crap benefits and crap protections; naturally Bush talks up hard work when talking to an audience of immigrants, despite not being famous for working hard himself. Hard work, family, and faith: the ideal package for a docile labour pool. And the core duo, faith and family, are the basic reactionary program: one the enemy of free independent critical thought, the other a code for hostility to freedom, independence and autonomy for women. No doubt it never crossed Bush’s mind that there is a tension between the valorization of ‘faith’ and freedom; that faith in some ways limits and interferes with freedom; and especially that some people who ‘live lives of faith’ and ‘call upon people to believe in God’ decidedly use ‘faith’ as a weapon to smash any freedoms they don’t like. But it should have. It’s ludicrous to say Jerry Falwell cherished freedom.

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 [9/11] happen.’

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.

I listen to feminists and all these radical gals. … 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.

Timothy Noah issued a slightly less emollient press release.

God, they say, is love, but the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15, hit the jackpot trafficking in small-minded condemnation…On news of Falwell’s death, McCain said in a statement, “Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country.” Nonsense. He was a bigot, a reactionary, a liar, and a fool.

And public officials should not be pretending otherwise. Fred Phelps is not a peppery but essentially decent guy; Pat Robertson is not a lamp unto our feet; and Jerry Falwell was not a man of distinguished accomplishment. Tell the truth, you schmucks.