Burning in Heaven

Oscar Wilde said, on hearing of the demise of his nemesis Lord Douglas, "I have no doubt that he is burning in heaven."

Jerry Falwell is dead since the day before yesterday, and he will be dead a long time. That is some consolation. Some. Not much.

A co-worker me told that his wife knew Falwell personally, and when she got the news of his death by cell phone while driving on the expressway, she was so upset she almost had a wreck and had to pull over.

I can't find it in my black heart to feel the slightest bit of sympathy for the bereaved. I couldn't squeeze out even a single crocodile tear if you tied me to a chair and made me watch the PTL Club until I was as mad as Jose Padilla.

On the other hand, I'm not singing and dancing like a Munchkin after Dorothy drops in on the Wicked Witch without leaving the house. Falwell was well past his "pull by" date, but the damage is already done. The man did a truly monumental amount of harm to our country and the planet in the three score and 13 years allotted to him by Fate. I do mourn. I mourn what he did in this life--I mourn that he ever lived.

I have no call to judge him or any other mortal soul, but in all honesty I think the world would be a better place if Jerry Falwell had never been born.

Without Falwell, perhaps, there be no Bush Regime; no Iraq war. There might not be a Supreme Court poised to reverse Roe v. Wade; no Justice Dept. wiping its collective arse with the Bill of Rights. There might not have been long eight years of Reagan.

Falwell was present at the creation, so to speak, of the Christianist movement that has brought us to our present pass. He was one of the first mullahs of the American Taliban. One of the first dominoes to drop. At the very least, there would be no "Moral Majority" and no Liberty U. madrassa training the next gen prayer warriors and lawyers.

The Fascists wouldn't be calling themselves Republicans, the Republicans wouldn't be calling themselves Democrats, and "Liberal" would not be a synonym for "Pariah." I'm not saying that we all would be living in some ecologically balanced people's paradise, absent Falwell--but all by himself he made he made the world a worse place to live in--a much, much worse place.

Now, I believe, Falwell is beyond all reward and punishment. I am glad he's gone. But my--joy--is tempered by my suspicion he is beyond all suffering. I don't believe in an afterlife, heaven, or hell. I wish there was a heaven for him to burn in. I kind of like imagining Rev. Falwell's entry into heaven and his turn before the Judgement Seat in the style of a Jack Chick cartoon tract--in the last panel he'd be makin' like bacon in the skillet of righteousness.