Regarding the Death of Jerry Falwell

A charlatan is dead.

I will take this as an opportunity to commemorate his death with more anger than sorrow -- and for a man who heaped scorn upon the least of his brethren at every opportunity, this seems at the very least to be consistent with the man's example. Not that his is an example that I would take as commandment to follow, mind. You get the point, I hope, dear readers. (Job 4:8)

It is without the least twinge of irony that I make the following disclaimer:

Speaking ill of the dead was Jerry Falwell's stock in fucking trade, so anyone with a pious instinct upon reading this is officially required to spare me the outrage.

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I've heard much about divine reward and divine punishment, and I've read that people reserve the judgment of Falwell to his Creator. If there's justice to be meted out, the argument goes, then let it be so. He'll get his now, if he didn't get his before his death. And deserved or not, he's gone on to a better place.

I say, "Fuckabuncha that otherworld nonsense."

Falwell had every opportunity to direct his earthly energies into making this a more accepting world, a more humble world, a world more in awe of The Divine Truth. But did he? No. He fearmongered, and wagged his pudgy fingers in our faces, and callously dismissed the legitimate suffering of thousands (AIDS pandemic, 9/11 to name a couple) to push his narrow interpretation of a Bronze Age text on a largely credulous public. He was a criminal, unfairly and unrepentantly abusing his tax-exempt status as "holy man" to pour dollars into a coordinated campaign to blur the distinction between *his* church and *our* state, vandalizing the very notions upon which the latter was founded.

And now we have power-brokers of all stripes sucking up to the many who follow in his wake, each trying to out-capitulate and out-pander the other, each drooling at the prospect of tapping that ample voter file.

The well is deeply poisoned.

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Of course, the litany goes, how dare any of us who were offended by this man's mission dare utter an unkind word about all of that. He leaves behind a family, suffering a loss.

To this?

He got to die with his "reputation" intact, such as it is. The only time you see these scumbags humbled and repentant is when they're caught and exposed for the hypocrites that they are. Ted Haggard. Jimmy Swaggart. Jim Bakker. That's the only justice we ever could have hoped to have, and now that opportunity is gone forever. His legacy of creeping theocracy remains, however.

I would have rejoiced if he'd been reedemed in life -- the only life that any of us can ever know.

A charlatan is dead.

His family is suffering now? You ask me, he got off easy.

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There are those among you who would say that I celebrate this man's death. Far from it.

There's nothing here to celebrate.