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Agent of intolerance

It's hard to really mourn the passing of Jerry Falwell. It's even harder to believe that anyone could have taken this man seriously. As this piece in The Nation, "Agent of Intolerance" highlights, the statements and epithets of Falwell made him the subject of ridicule by some but nevertheless supported by many. Only in America? - is a question one must ask.

"Falwell uttered countless epithets over his long life--in 1999 he warned that Tinky Winky, a character on the children's show Teletubbies, might be gay--but his most infamous remark arrived on the morning of 9/11, after the terrorist attacks, when he proclaimed, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

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