Farewell, Jerry Falwell

Thursday, 17th May 2007

"It's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to..." Harsh words, but then you wouldn't expect Christopher Hitchens to be wearing a black armband, would you?

In the time immediately following the assault by religious fascism on American civil society in September 2001, he used his regular indulgence on the airwaves to commit treason. Entirely exculpating the suicide-murderers, he asserted that their acts were a divine punishment of the United States. Again, I ask you to imagine how such a person would be treated if he were not supposedly a man of faith.
One of his associates, Bailey Smith, once opined that "God does not hear the prayers of a Jew." This is one of the few anti-Semitic remarks ever made that has a basis in fact, since God does not exist and does not attend to any prayers, but Smith was not quite making that point. Along with his friend Pat Robertson, who believes in secret Jewish control of the world of finance, and Billy Graham, who boasted to Richard Nixon that the Jews had never guessed what he truly thought of them, Falwell kept alive the dirty innuendo about Jews that so many believing Christians seem to need.

If you can't get enough hell-fire Hitch, you can watch him on CNN, in his new, unbearded guise, discussing Mitt Romney's Mormonism and religious bigotry.