Gay Today: World

Is the 'New' Jerry Falwell
Still Preaching Hate?

Compiled By GayToday

Lynchburg, Virginia--More than sixty days after a controversial meeting between the reverends Jerry Falwell and Mel White, the two still disagree about what it means to tone down antigay hate rhetoric, The [Lynchburg, Va.] News & Advance reports.

White, a gay minister who co-wrote Falwell's autobiography before openly acknowledging his homosexuality, said he's followed Falwell's every word since a highly publicized October 23 summit held in Lynchburg.

The Rev. Mel White (center) and the Rev. Jerry Falwell

White says: "It's a mixed bag. On the one hand we think he's trying. On the other hand he doesn't understand what spiritual violence is."

White also complains that Falwell is continuing to characterize gay activists as "the bad guys. He doesn't understand that the good guys are the activists now."

Falwell spokesman Mark DeMoss, said he can understand some of White's disappointment and frustration but adds that White needs to be patient and to be glad about Falwell's willingness to talk.

"This is the only dialogue Mel White is enjoying in America with anyone who disagrees with him," he said. "I hope he doesn't lose sight of that."

DeMoss added that Falwell will never change his position on homosexuality: "If he lived to usher in Y3K, he would not alter his view."

The January issue of Falwell's newsmagazine, the National Liberty Journal,links the murder of a 13-year-old Arkansas boy by two pedophiles to the death of Matthew Shepard, complaining media has "colluded" in the covering up of the Arkansas killing "by two gay men" while publicizing Shepard's murder in Wyoming.

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Rising Tide of Anti-Gay Bigotry Documented by PFAW

The Stranger Has A Date

Falwell's Fears & Hates

Related Sites:
Rev. Mel White's Soulforce

GayToday does not endorse related sites.

National Liberty Journal editor, J. M. Smith, quotes Joseph Farah's comments: "Jesse Dirkhising was brutally raped, tortured and murdered—for fun, for thrills, for the hell of it, because it felt good, maybe even because of a certain politically protected lifestyle has been elevated to virtual sainthood."

Four more gay news stories on page six are titled: "California Launches Same-Sex Marriage Campaign," "Boy Scouts Reject Troop," "Presbyterians Battle over Gay 'Unions', and "Teachers Claim Schools Promote Homosexuality."

Bob Kunst, the Miami-based veteran activist who protested the Falwell-White meeting as a shameless publicity stunt on the part of both ministers, one used to shore up Falwell's faltering image, told GayToday:

"Mel White says Falwell's pronouncements are a mixed bag? Really. The only bag I care to think about when it comes to Jerry Falwell, is the one that Tinky Winky carries." "