Font ResizeDavis hated Crawford, and vice versa. The genesis of the feud is murky, but over the years, they developed a pretty poisoned relationship.
And when Davis learned of Crawford's death, she said, "You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good."
In some circles, the sentiment was echoed in the glee that the death of Falwell prompted. And while it's bad form to take pleasure in the death of another, in Falwell's case, it might be apt. He often took schadenfreude - taking perverse pleasure in the misfortune of others - to new and unexpected levels.
After all, he did once say that AIDS was God's punishment of gays. He called gays "brute beasts ... part of a vile and satanic system (that) will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven."
He said the United States brought Sept. 11 upon itself, pointing the finger at "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."
He once called Billy Graham - Billy Graham, for God's sake
Billy Graham?
He was evidence, as writer Christopher Hitchens wrote last week, that anyone with the title "Reverend" can say any ridiculous thing and get away with it - Falwell joining the ranks of the Rev. Al Sharpton, for instance, in that regard.
It is easy to find ridiculous utterings of the man from Lynchburg. He opposed desegregation and referred to the civil rights movement as the "civil wrongs movement." He supported the apartheid government of South Africa. He once claimed that the antichrist was among us and was a Jewish male.
He said a lot of things that put him in the same league with that wacko from Kansas who goes around protesting at soldiers' funerals and who said that the killings at Virginia Tech were the act of a vengeful God in retribution for this nation's acceptance of gays and assorted other sinners.
While the wacko from Kansas is dismissed as a wacko, Falwell was part of the mainstream, a frequent invitee to the cable news shows to pontificate about politics, religion and the end of the world, which he believed was nigh.
And that's what I think was so dangerous about him.
He pretty much created the religious right - a small bit of hypocrisy considering he was critical of the Rev. Martin Luther King for mixing religion and politics. It wasn't OK for King to do so, but it was OK for Falwell.
That's what made Falwell so despicable, in my book. He used religion as a wedge. He created this idea that there was only one kind of Christian, one that held the same political beliefs as him, and the rest were doomed to an eternity in hell. He had nothing but contempt for those who held different beliefs and wanted to mold the United States into a country that would not tolerate them. He made being a Christian a statement of political belief, rather than a statement of faith.
And that's sad, subverting people's faith to use as a wedge to divide the nation.
What was equally despicable about him was he played on people's fears and suspicions and prejudices to divide. He did not seek to heal, to perform the work of Jesus and comfort the afflicted and minister to the poor, sick and weak.
He was a snake-oil salesman.
I've believed that ever since the first time I met him, 22 years ago at the York Fairgrounds.
He was in town to give a speech before the Industrial Management Club of York, and I was assigned to cover it. What he had to do with industrial management, I have no idea. He had railed against unions and said they were the work of Satan, so there's that.
It was a Saturday evening, and as such, news coverage was sparse. Falwell held a press conference before his speech, and I was the only member of the press to show. It was just Jerry and me in a little room in Old Main.
It was kind of uncomfortable because he was, well, kind of creepy.
The word that came to mind was unctuous.
I can't recall much about what he said. I looked up the story and he was pretty innocuous, I guess. He didn't rail about gays and Jews and whatever. He did predict that President Reagan's appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court would outlaw abortion within "four to seven years."
How'd that work out?
I left the speech feeling, well, slimy, like I had been anointed with a slathering of grease.
I went home and took a shower.
Phelps: God hates Falwell
Some time ago, I wrote that Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church - the folks who've protested at soldiers' funerals - were actually a secular performance-art/street theater troupe, that their act was satirical.
And now comes this news: Members of the Topeka, Kan., church will picket the Rev. Jerry Falwell's funeral.
A news release posted on the church's Web site says, “God hates Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and all such . . . heretic preachers - from fundamentalist evangelicals to openly gay Episcopalians and pedophile Catholics - all of whom have created the Satanic Sodomite Zeitgeist wherein America has irreversibly gone the way of Sodom.”
I rest my case.
