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In his last televised Sunday sermon before Christmas, Moral Majority founder and Faith and Values Coalition national chairman Reverend Jerry Falwell announced, "we are winning the Christmas war" and thanked God for the "few conservatives" in the media.

In his December 19 sermon, Falwell continued to forward the right-wing claim that "secularists" are waging a war on Christmas; Media Matters for America has documented this claim here, here, here, and here. Falwell asserted that "the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and other secularists" "hate Christ" and want to "steal Christmas from America." He went on to state: "Imagine God raising up an army of attorneys. ... We have declared war on the left, and we're going to sue the hide off of everybody, everybody, who tries to inhibit the liberties of our children and our families from worshipping and honoring the Lord."

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Moral Majority founder and Faith and Values Coalition national chairman Reverend Jerry Falwell attempted to dismiss the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as part of "the little noisy, squeaky, left-leaning minority" and as the prime example of "a runaway federal judiciary," falsely claiming that the "23 eggheads out there" on the 9th Circuit "get their rulings overturned almost every time." Also during his televised December 19 sermon, Falwell advocated "doing away" with the 9th Circuit; he was apparently referring to legislation that the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed as an amendment to the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act, which would split the 9th Circuit into three parts.

But according to Supreme Court litigation firm Goldstein & Howe, only four circuit courts had a better reversal record in 2003. As this chart (PDF) details, the 9th Circuit had the fifth-lowest number of reversals among the nation's thirteen circuit courts. Six of the thirteen circuit courts -- including the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- had 100-percent reversal rates.

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His mission? "We must, from the highest office in the land right down to the shoeshine boy in the airport, have a return to Biblical basics."

Falwell's strategy was to create a voting block of Christian conservatives and insinuate them into the Republican party. So he urged fundamentalists and evangelicals to set aside their differences and mobilize under his unifying banner. The Moral Majority's rank-and-file members were expected to vote the way Jerry told them. "Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions," he explained.

The Moral Majority began with fighting the Equal Rights Amendment tooth and nail. In typical Falwell fashion, he went out of his way to antagonize its proponents:

"I listen to feminists and all these radical gals... These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men; that's their problem."

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Falwell's revulsion sometimes manifests itself in bizarre, nearly paranoid, ways. In 1999 he published an article in his National Liberty Journal entitled "Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet." The piece focused on disturbing clues that one of the characters in the hit children's show Teletubbies was designed to promote the gay lifestyle:

"Now, further evidence that the creators of the series intend for Tinky Winky to be a gay role model have surfaced. He is purple -- the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay-pride symbol."

When the mainstream media ridiculed Falwell for analyzing the sexual politics of a show aimed at pre-schoolers, Jerry responded that he didn't understand how people could miss the subtext. He contended that gay periodicals had been discussing Tinky Winky's sexual orientation for quite some time. Falwell simply couldn't grasp that the gay community's embrace of the character had been tongue-in-cheek.

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Perhaps Falwell learned something useful from the HUSTLER verdict. In 1994, he issued a direct mail piece asking financial contributors to "help me produce a national television documentary which will expose shocking new facts about Bill Clinton."

Falwell took the money and cranked out the smear-campaign-in-a-videotape called The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton. It was unsophisticated conservative agitprop, full of lies and unsubstantiated rumors about both the President and the First Lady.

The producer of the tape, Patrick Matrisciana, later confessed to having posed in the video as an anonymous journalist. The silhouetted figure on the tape told Jerry that President Clinton was killing off whistleblowers who knew too much about his private life. It was a complete fabrication. When the news broke about the complete dishonesty of the tape, in true form Falwell tried to disclaim having any editorial control over the project.

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In 1994 Falwell quietly accepted $3.5 million from Korean cult messiah Sun Myung Moon as part of a larger deal to bail Liberty University out from under its horrendous debt load. Perhaps Jerry was moved by this staggering generosity. That might be the reason why Falwell publicly urged his friend President Reagan to pardon Moon's tax evasion conviction.

Jerry was widely criticized in the Christian community for lending legitimacy to Moon's organization. Moon had always claimed that he was Jesus Christ's successor and moral superior. It was inconceivable that a fundamentalist Christian like Falwell would regard Moon as anything other than a blasphemer. But, as always, whenever confronted with a choice between money, connections, or the appearance of propriety, propriety came last.

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FALWELL: I never really expected to make it with Mom, but then after she showed all the other guys in town such a good time, I figured, "What the hell!"

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Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
Falwell and the rest of the "Moral Majority" (which is neither) claim that the declining references to "Merry Christmas" is due to a concerted effort by "Anti-Christian" elements and not the changing of American demographics and the need for businesses to appeal to all consumers.

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Originally posted by Kil

My Evangelical friend says Falwell is going to hell...

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Wendy wrote:

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Originally posted by Kil

My Evangelical friend says Falwell is going to hell...
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I'm glad to hear it, but I always wonder how they know.

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Originally posted by beskeptigal

It is a bit ironic that the Falwells of the world don't see their attacks against gay marriage, pro choice and everything else in the same light as they see others' desires to remove religious symbols from government places.

Clearly Falwell thinks it is OK to make Christian beliefs into laws. That includes making all Christian holidays legal holidays officially sanctioned by the state.

Pat Robertson made it clear on his program the other day how disgusted he was with Kwanzaa.

The idea these guys are bigots just doesn't occur to them.

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