Wait......What?

[featherynscale]

Ummm. Yeah. Hands up who thought that Reverend Falwell would ever, for any reason, admit that gay people were people and deserved basic human rights?

Yeah. Me either.

Whiskey tango, over.

Comments

[bloominglotus.livejournal.com]

Falwell. Jerry Falwell. Jerry "Tinkywinky the Teletubby is gay because he is purple and carries a purse" Falwell.
This confuses bloominglotus.



I may post this link on my journal - full credit to you.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I got it from postqueer, myself.
I mean, at no point does he say it's okay to be gay, he just says that gay people deserve to be treated as people... which is astounding enough, coming from him.

[bloominglotus.livejournal.com]

I figure that you have to take the small victories when you can. It's not a total life alteration, but it is a big improvement. I sure never saw it coming!

I thought it was a joke.

[opaljax.livejournal.com]

I had to read it twice. He will probably kick himself in the ass later.

Re: I thought it was a joke.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

My thought was "I wonder if there's money in this, or influence to be pandered? Is he trying to support Roberts even though Roberts was a decent human being once because he really thinks that way, or because putting Roberts on the bench gives him some kind of victory that's more important than squashing teh gay?". I mean, maybe I'm cynical. Maybe he just had a moment of clarity.

Re: I thought it was a joke.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

I don't know who this Roberts fellow is, but I don't trust him if Falwell's in his corner.

[chronarchy.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. Maybe there's hope for this world after all?

Hm . . . Or maybe this is one of the seven signs of the apocolypse?

Signs and Portents

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

It's at least #2, then, because the other day, I sewed something, and it turned out right.

Re: Signs and Portents

[chronarchy.livejournal.com]

Crap. And I've been putting off digging that bomb shelter into the ground behind my house. I'd better get to that.

Actually, not that surprised.

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Falwell has been gradually softening his stance on homosexuality, or at least on how homosexual people should be treated, for several years now. At one point many years ago, he referred to my alma mater as "those whores on the hill." My senior year, he actually *came to our campus* and *ate lunch in our dining hall.* Granted, he ate with the Campus Crusade for Christ girls, but he was peacably eating in a room that also held a lot of lesbians and a couple of gay men. And there was quite a brouhaha the year after, when he hinted that he might possibly talk with some leaders in the gay movement (as opposed to shouting at them).

Oh, and the Tinky Winky thing? That wasn't Falwell himself, that was a writer in a magazine put out by Liberty University, of which Falwell is the chancellor. I don't think he's ever stated whether or not he agrees, but it wasn't him that said it.

[teross50.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the "Log Cabin" arm of the GOP has anything to do with this? I agree this would be the time to trump P. Roberts Yet let us not forget Fawell's statements post 9/11

O.M.G.

[lightonthesill.livejournal.com]

Wow. There is hope.

Wow...

[zanzaboonda.livejournal.com]

I almost fell off my chair when I read that.

Some members of my family were quite prejudiced against other races before I had my daughter, but they seem much better now, as if they *finally* realized it doesn't matter. Duh.

Just goes to show you that anyone can change. Sometimes it takes getting to know someone personally (like the gay man that helped him write his autobiography, lol) for people to really learn. Well, that, and a serious heart condition, lol.

I'm sorry... I recently realized that I tend to overstate the obvious a lot, lol...

Re: Wow...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Sure. It's a lot easier to hate people when you can think of them as a monolithic block of otherness than when you have to think of them as Joe down the street and Cindy at the coffee shop. Once they have faces, it's different. Which is why you get faceless men or a group of men all with the same face in war propaganda. The Enemy has to be The Enemy. Once they have names and faces and lives, nobody wants to kill them.
(If you haven't noticed, I'm also a stater of the obvious. I'm aware of this, but I continue to do it. Sometimes the obvious isn't as obvious as it might be.)

[sannion.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm actually kinda speechless. Maybe there's hope after all.