Posts on Jerry Falwell

I saw this article in the Washington Post yesterday about the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed at Guantanamo Bay in which he attempted to find out if the judges were fans of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson because he felt that, if they were, he could not get a fair trial:

Invoking names such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted organizer of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, probed the private opinions of the military judge who is overseeing his case Tuesday in a series of sometimes testy exchanges during a hearing on the judge's impartiality.

Mohammed, wearing a black turban, began by asking Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann about his religious beliefs and whether he had any association with the religious organizations of Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell.

"If you are in one of those denominations, you are not going to be fair," said Mohammed, who switched between Arabic and English when he spoke to the judge. The judge said he had not belonged to any congregation for some time but had attended Lutheran and Episcopal churches.

I didn't write about it because I felt it was crass to try and score political points off the ramblings of a man responsible for thousands of American deaths ... but then again, I don't work for the Family Research Council:

What was most offensive was the subject matter of this interrogation-namely, the judge's personal religious views. "We are well-known as extremists and fanatics, and there are also Christians and Jews that are very extremist," Mohammed said. "If you, for example, were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial towards us." He also asked if the judge read books by Billy Graham or Pat Buchanan and wanted to know what movies he has watched. Col. Kohlmann rightly declined to answer. But this line of questioning seemed to ring a bell. It is reminiscent of the questioning, now abandoned, of judicial nominees about their religious beliefs by liberal senators during their confirmation hearings. But the Constitution is clear-"no religious test shall ever be required" for public office. The charge that only a radical secularist can be impartial on the bench, or that conservatives and evangelical Christians can never be, must be rejected from any source.

As everyone recalls, back in 2000 when John McCain was seeking the Republican nomination, he delivered a speech in which he infamously called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell’ “agents of intolerance.”  Then, in 2006, as he was gearing up to make another run for the nomination, he suddenly changed his tune and even agreed to deliver the commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University.  

It was assumed that this was little more than crass political pandering on McCain’s part, but apparently McCain and Falwell struck up a friendship that endures to this day - or at least one that McCain finds politically valuable, judging by this AP article on what McCain keeps in his Senate office:

For all of the randomness, the office contents seem to fit together, with one jarring exception. There is only one glad-handing political photo in the office, and it is of McCain posing with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and Falwell's wife, Macel, in 2006. The inscription to McCain from televangelist Falwell reads: "You are a great American, a national treasure and I am glad to say my good friend."

Forbes has been running excerpts from the new book “Falwell Inc.: Inside a Religious, Political, Educational and Business Empire” by Dirk Smillie.  The most recent excerpt recounts Falwell’s pioneering work in the field of direct mail and how he used wedge issues to raise millions of dollars: 

Falwell had the formidable talent of Jerry Huntsinger. Then 45, he was a former minister who lived on a farm near Richmond who had been taking advertising concepts from the for-profit world and applying them to nonprofit religious ventures. Huntsinger brought a novelist's touch to direct mail. He considered every fundraising letter a first cousin to the short story. "A short story has a problem that seems insurmountable, a sympathetic character that is a victim of the problem, complications and obstacles, but finally, a resolution." He advised his clients that emergency appeals work best because they give donors a feeling of "excitement at coming to the rescue."

Huntsinger was also a master at fine tuning the mechanics: the color of the envelope, the position of the address window, which paragraphs to indent, which sentences to underline. He knew how to lure a reader's eye just to where he wanted.

Huntsinger encouraged Falwell to focus on wedge issues in his mailings, excoriating the feminist movement and attacking homosexual rights, often equating both with the dangers of communism. As one letter stated: "Dear Friend: Homosexuals are on the march in this country. Homosexuals do not reproduce, they recruit, and many of them are after my children and your children….This is one major reason why we must keep "The Old Time Gospel Hour" alive…So don't delay. Let me hear from you immediately. I will be anxiously awaiting your reply."

The sense of impending doom the letter conveyed fit perfectly with Huntsinger's operating credo. It turned a pitch into a storyline (gays on the the march) with sympathetic characters (children) under threat from sex offenders (gay pedophiles). It was an emergency appeal that sought to panic his audience into coming to the rescue.

Newsweek interviews the late Jerry Falwell’s wife, “a sheltered, Christian beauty named Macel.” Mrs. Falwell partly attributes the “foundering” of her husband’s movement to his death: “Jerry spoke about and said things that he believed, and he had a gathering around him that thought the same way he did. Today they don't have a leader that would go out on a limb … If he were here, it would be different.” Although she doesn’t understand why people called her husband an “agent of intolerance,” she does plan to support John McCain, and thinks that he “would be Jerry’s choice as well.”

Robert Knight weighs in on the Jeremiah Wright controversy, saying it is unfair to compare to Jerry Falwell to Wright because "Falwell was no hater. After his most controversial moment, when he blamed pro-abortion and pro-homosexual groups for 9/11 as God's punishment on America for abandoning moral standards, he apologized." Of course, Falwell did nothing of the sort.

From the News and Advance: "The [Virginia] House of Delegates voted 90-3 Monday to name a section of U.S. 460 in Lynchburg the Jerry Falwell Parkway, which means only the signature of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is necessary to complete the naming ... the stretch of road covers much of the area where Falwell spent his life, reaching from Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University on the south side of Lynchburg to an area to the east where his ancestors settled 200 years ago and his father’s businesses were located."

As his son Jonathan explained: "I was privileged on Thursday to deliver the opening prayer at the Virginia House of Delegates meeting in Richmond, on a day in which the House and Senate passed a resolution honoring my father for his service to our state and to the worldwide Christian community. The Virginia legislators, noting that Dad was 'one of America’s most influential leaders' and 'a man of remarkable faith,' passed a resolution honoring him for his efforts in founding and leading Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC), Liberty University and many affiliate ministries. It was certainly humbling to stand in the majestic chamber in Richmond as we listened to Dad’s life being described with great reverence."

Mark DeMoss, a conservative Christian publicist, is generating a lot of news with his open letter sent to some 150 right-wing leaders urging them to rally behind Mitt Romney for the sole purpose of denying Rudy Giuliani the Republican presidential nomination.  

DeMoss has been a supporter of Romney for months, organizing a meeting between the candidate and various right-wing leaders, and serving as a member of his Faith and Values Steering Committee.   Given all the talk lately of right-wing leaders and activists bolting the GOP should Giuliani win the nomination, DeMoss apparently sensed an opportunity to pitch his candidate to the disenchanted and urge them to back Romney not only because he shares their values but, most importantly, to prevent Giuliani from winning:  

As certain as it seems that Hillary will represent the Democratic Party, it now appears the GOP representative will be either Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Governor Mitt Romney (based on polls in early states, money raised and on hand, staff and organization, etc.). And, if it is not Mitt Romney, we would, for the first time in my memory, be faced with a general election contest between two “pro-choice” candidates.

And you don’t just have to take DeMoss’s word that Romney is the real deal – apparently even Jerry Falwell would have supported him, had he not died:

Just about six months before his death, Jerry accepted my invitation to a meeting with Gov. Romney at his home outside Boston. He joined me, and about 15 other evangelicals, for an intimate discussion with the Governor and his wife Ann. Jerry was one of several that day who said, “Governor, I don’t have a problem with your being Mormon, but I want to ask you how you would deal with Islamic jihadists…or with illegal immigration…or how you would choose justices for the Supreme Court…,” and so on.

While Jerry Falwell never told me how he intended to vote in the upcoming election, I think I know how he would not have voted. I also know he would not have “sat this one out” and given up on the Supreme Court for a generation.

Aside from assuring his right-wing allies that Romney is everything they are looking for, the focus of his the letter is on capitalizing on the Right’s antipathy toward, and fear of, Giuliani : 

Currently, conservatives (whether evangelical or not) are dividing their support among several candidates. In the long run, this only helps Rudy Giuliani, who clearly does not share our values on so many issues … Talk of a possible third party candidate draft movement only helps Giuliani (or, worse yet, Clinton), in my view. While I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. James Dobson that not having a pro-life nominee of either major party presents an unacceptable predicament, I would rather work hard to ensure we do nominate a pro-life candidate than to launch an 11th-hour third party campaign. Mike Huckabee affirmed this concern when he told the Washington Post last week, “I think a third party only helps elect Hillary Clinton.”

“Hey, you hate Giuliani and are unimpressed by everyone else, so why not back Romney?” seems to be DeMoss’s message – one that, for a lot of panicked right-wing leaders, just might be a lifesaver, since they have placed themselves in a situation where they are faced with the unpleasant prospect of having to abandon the GOP all together. 

In her series "God's Warrirors," CNN's Christiane Amanpour visited Liberty University where she learned that, though greatly pleased with the confirmations of Justices Roberts and Alito, they are training the "next generation of pit bulls" to "keep fighting at the Supreme Court until we have a new day. We never ever, ever give up."

Transcript below the jump:

Before his death, Jerry Falwell was interviewed by CNN's Christiane Amanpour for her series "God's Warrirors" and stated that, in the next election, national security was more important than social issues, attacked the Democrats, and stood by his post-9/11 comments blaming "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians ... the ACLU, People For the American Way" for the attacks.

Transcript below the jump.

In an email, the Virigina Family Foundation and Pastors for Family Values say they are "pleased to announce that Pastor Jonathan Falwell, son of Reverend Jerry Falwell and newly installed senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, will be the keynote luncheon speaker at our first Pastors Family Issues Summit, to be held Tuesday, September 11, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. in Richmond." Flyer here. [PDF]

The Lynchburg News & Advance explains: "Liberty University recently announced that it was able to pay off its debt through $29 million in life insurance policies taken out on the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15 at the age of 73. Falwell’s son, Jerry Falwell Jr., said Liberty solicited several insurance providers in 2003 in order to do just that. Coupled with existing plans, the school was able to come away with a single $21 million policy with a $1 million annual premium. Falwell left a total of $34 million to Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church. His son said Falwell had purchased six to eight insurance policies through three or four insurance companies."

Part III of the series, airing Thursday night, "traces how the Christian conservative movement, through grass-roots politics, became a force in U.S. society. The speakers include Ron Luce, founder of the Teen Mania Ministries; Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition; and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, co-founder of the Moral Majority. It would be Falwell's last interview before he died a week later."

Received Defender of Israel Award from Christians United For Israel.

As Eric Rauchway noted in the New Republic Online this week, the Right’s myth of rampant voter fraud persists in spite of the facts of its near-nonexistence:

The divergence of rhetoric from reality resembles that of a hundred years ago, when reformers first supported registration laws. Although the reformers talked about "corruption," they didn't really mean vote-buying or repeat voting. They meant the wrong kind of people voting: "Universal suffrage," one reformer noted in 1903, meant "'tramp' suffrage"; it meant "licensed mobocracy."

Characterizing the modern right-wing campaign to place restrictions on voting -- to counter mythical “fraud” -- as simply a cynically veiled attempt to disenfranchise citizens seems unfair. Nevertheless, this view was more or less plainly articulated by Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the conservative movement, in 1980:

Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome -- good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

Weyrich was addressing one of the seminal events in the creation of the New Right, the Religious Roundtable’s National Affairs Briefing in Dallas. At this gathering of 15,000-20,000 ministers and activists just a few months before the election, Ronald Reagan joined speakers including Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, and many more. Reagan famously declared, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you” – cementing the alliance between the Religious Right and the Republican Party that continues to this day.