No tears

American TV preacher Jerry Falwell is dead at 73. Pardon my total lack of “Christian” charity, but good riddance to bad rubbish.

Falwell was racist, sexist and homophobic and I’m not sorry he’s dead. He defended “separate but equal” racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa; he said the “anti-Christ” would be a Jewish male; he opposed women’s rights and, of course, a woman’s right to choose.

But he was singular in his hatred of gay and lesbian people, once famously issuing a “Declaration of War” against gay people. He used his TV pulpit to spread lies and slander about gay and lesbian people and, in so doing, gave encouragement to politicians’ anti-gay crusades as well as the violence of bashers. His words and actions would have left gay and lesbian children of his followers or other fundamentalists feeling that suicide was their only way out, and some no doubt took that route because of him.

So you’ll have to excuse me for not feeling the least bit sorry he’s dead. I only wish his hatefilled ideas had gone to the grave with him, but, sadly, they haven’t.