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May 17, 2007

If Falwell Thinks He's in Hell Now ...

Nods to Jesus' General for noticing that Fred Pehlps's Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket Jerry Falwell's funeral. I guess he wasn't enough of a fag-hater to satisfy their god, because, as they now are saying, "God Hates Jerry Falwell" for spending his life "prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone'."

The "corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell" said a lot of things about homosexuals that one might easily mistake as having come from the mouth of Fred Phelps himself. For instance:

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

He also said 9/11was God's punishment for America's tolerance of "the gays and the lesbians."

The strange thing is that Phelps also criticizes Falwell for "warmly" praising "Christ-rejecting Jews" (when Falwell actually said some pretty harsh things about Jews) and "backsliders" like Billy Graham (when Falwell also came down hard on him). I nearly wrote a post the other day comparing Falwell to Phelps. I was thinking of doing a quiz with several quotes by Falwell and asking the reader to guess which ones were by him and which were by Phelps. I decided enough people had written about him that I'd let it go.

It looks to me as if the only legitimate complaint that Fred Phelps has against Jerry Falwell is that Falwell was at least sensible enough to distance himself from his fellow crazy hater. Falwell did, in fact, care about the "filthy lucre," whereas Phelps only cares about the hate. If there is, indeed, a Hell, I think Phelps's eventual arrival there - God willing, sooner rather than later - will make Falwell's eternal torment all the more unbearable.

Posted by Becky at May 17, 2007 01:23 PM