As most of you know, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, one-time founder of the Moral Majority and the new Faith & Values Coalition and chancellor of Liberty University died today. His death should not pass without comment.
There was little chance that it would. The media has already begun to vilify the late preacher, calling him radical, dangerous, out-of-touch and all sorts of other garbage. He’s been labelled a hatemonger and a homophobe. It’s comes as no surprise that every liberal news source has been quick to remind the public that he “outed” the Teletubbies character Tinky Winky and that he blamed the September 11th attacks, in part, on homosexuals, feminists, liberal organizations and what have you. They present him as a loose canon. A man fighting on the losing side of the American culture war.
I call it propaganda. I’ve already written to ABCNews.com and stated as much.
Consider for a moment the claim that he “outed” Tinky Winky. In the first place, Falwell never made made the comments refered to. Those comments were made by his magazine, The National Liberty Journal. He wasn’t even aware of the issue or of the existence of the teletubbie inquestion until the controversy erupted. But nevermind that, for even this is irrelevant in light of the fact that CNN [http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9712/24/teletubbies/] and the Village Voice both “outed” the character a few years before the NLJ’s commentary. The difference was that CNN and like organizations showed their liberal colors by celebrating Tinky Winky’s possible homosexuality, but Falwell’s NLJ criticized it.
As for the general claim that liberals in general were partly responsible for the September 11th attacks, Rev. Falwell publicly apologized for those remarks, but it appears his opponents can never forgive and forget. Why?
Because the culture war is real. Rev. Falwell was one of the most effective [Admit it; his Moral Majority was greatly responsible for the election of Ronald Reagan to the US Presidency] and out-spoken generals of what’s usually refered to as the “vast Right-wing conspiracy” by media sources who are controlled by the “vast Left-wing conspiracy.” The smear campaign the libertine media has launched against the late Reverend was necessary to minimize the impact of someone who has been effective enough in the past to actually pose a threat to their ideological monopoly of our nation’s news sources. They simply have to demonize him, even after the man is dead.
You see, Jerry Falwell was dangerous to the Left because he found a way around a legal muzzle that I have always felt to be an obnoxious violation of the idea of the Separation of Church & State. As many liberals know, there are IRS regulations that make a church’s tax-exempt status dependent on not endorsing or opposing candidates or political parties from the pulpit. [http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=154712,00.html]
This was not always so. Politics been discussed from the pulpits of America since settlers first began arriving. The Revolutionary War was galvanized from coffee houses and churches.
The problem is that the pulpit has traditionally been the forum of the conservative voice. The Left, as I’ve stated, has a virtual monopoly on our media sources. The Church remains the only possible bastion of opposition.
I’ll state the matter plainly. I think that the government has no right to tax religious organizations like churches, mosques and synagogues. The liberal opponents of the tax-exempt status of religious organizations call it an unfair government subsidy, but as the very idea of the government taxing a religious body seems to me a penalty, a means of regulation and certainly a muzzle on religious voices where it concerns politics. It is a direct violation of the Separation of Church & State to make that tax-exempt status dependent on keeping religious organizations out of the political arena.
I don’t want a theocracy any more than the next guy. By that, I mean that I don’t want a state religion or a Church-run government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Church has found that it is not immune to this truism in times past. But if the the content coming from the pulpits of America are policed and penalized, absolute power falls to the liberal voices. And they are not immune to the corrupting influence of power either.
Reverend Jerry Falwell was an individual, a civics-minded churchman and a man of conviction. Godspeed, sir, and may a new generation of like voices take up the torch in your absence.
In memorium,
Sirius Knott
Defending Genesis 