Newsweek: Jonathan Alter on Falwell: Don’t Believe the Hype

[Contrary1]

May 15, 2007

"I mean no disrespect to the dead, but I take the British view of obituaries, which is to try to capture the true public significance of the person who died, not just his good qualities. The truth about the Rev. Jerry Falwell is that he was a character assassin and hype artist who left little positive impact on the United States—and little negative impact either, for that matter. Besides founding Liberty University, he won’t be remembered as nearly as influential as he’s made out to be.

First, his real legacy: Falwell built the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia from scratch into a mega-church with a 6,000-seat auditorium. And he built Liberty University into a formidable institution that attracts over 20,000 students from around the world and a qualified faculty. Last year, Liberty’s debate team won the national championship. It’s not easy to create a university and Falwell deserves credit as an institution-builder. He will also be remembered through a famous Supreme Court case he lost, Hustler vs. Falwell, which established that public figures cannot recover damages when depicted in parodies. (The story of the lawsuit is told in the film, “The People vs. Larry Flynt”). In that sense, he inadvertently helped bolster the First Amendment.

But Falwell’s political legacy is much less impressive. He started out as a segregationist who harshly attacked Martin Luther King through the 1960s and later called Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa a phony. He was a strong supporter of Israel but openly anti-Semitic, announcing on many occasions that the anti-Christ would return as a Jew.

On September 13, 2001, Falwell said this on Pat Robertson’s show, “The 700 Club”: “The enemies of America give us probably what we deserve.” When asked to elaborate, Falwell added, “When we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. 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.’” Robertson replied, “Well, I totally concur.” Falwell later apologized, unconvincingly, for offending anyone..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18686440/site/newsweek/

[musiclawyer]

1. Excellent

Someone in MSM attempting to tell the truth