My apologies for posting this, but I think it says a lot about our so called religious leaders. The original audio may be found at

 http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=09%2F22%2F2001&PrgID=7  click on ESSAY

<donning asbestos suit, NOW!> flames taken offline, curses may be forwarded to god for delayed delivery.

Paul Courry



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Subject: NPR Commentary re Falwell by Scott Simon

[music]
ÿ
SCOTT SIMON:    I don't really want to be critical of anyone during a national crisis, especially people who are sources of spiritual
guidance to millions of Americans. But sometimes, the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson say something so staggering they
renew your capacity to be shocked, amen, even in a shocking time.
ÿ
Last week, when America was wounded and confused, the Rev. Falwell was a guest on Pat Robertson's television show, The 700 Club.
He said that God Almighty, angered by American's abortion rights, gay rights and secularism in schools had permitted terrorists to
slay the World Trade Center and smite the Pentagon.
ÿ
[tape]
ÿ
JERRY FALWELL: ...What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be minuscule if, in fact -- if, in fact -- God continues to lift the
curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
ÿ
PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they
can do to the major population.
ÿ
JERRY FALWELL: ... 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."
ÿ
------------------------------
ÿ
Scott Simon:    This week both the Reverends issued apologies, but only on paper, not the airwaves. Rev. Falwell called his own
remarks "insensitive, uncalled for and unnecessary," ..everything but "wrong."
ÿ
This week it was reported that Mark Bingham, a San Francisco public relations executive, may well have been one of the passengers
who so bravely resisted the hijackers of American Airlines flight 77. That flight crashed in an unpopulated field outside Pittsburgh
instead of another national monument.
ÿ
Mr. Bingham was 31. He played on a local gay rugby team and hoped to compete in next year's gay games in Sydney, Australia.
ÿ
I don't know if Mark Bingham was religious, but it seems to me that he lived a life that celebrated the preciousness of the world's
infinite variety.
ÿ
Not so the Revs. Robertson and Falwell and the mullahs of the Talaban, who seem to see a God who frowns at tolerance and smiles with
approval on murder and destruction.
ÿ
Let me put it in the bold terms in which many Americans may be thinking right now. If your plane was hijacked, who would you rather
sit next to?
ÿ
Righteous Reverends who sit back and say, "This is God's judgment for gay Teletubbies"?
ÿ
Or the gay rugby player who lays down his life to save others?
ÿ
And, by the way, which person seems closer to God?
ÿ
--- Scott Simon
ÿÿÿÿ Weekend All Things Considered
ÿÿÿÿ National Public Radio
ÿÿÿÿ September 22, 2001
ÿ
ÿ


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