My
Final Farewell to the Falwells
GOOD
RIDDANCE!
By
Larry Flynt
Sep.
01, 2020
When I heard that Jerry
Falwell Jr. had resigned the presidency of Liberty University in disgrace, it
struck me as the belated ending to a long personal saga with the Falwell
clan—and an essential footnote to the role of religion and free speech in
America. For those unfamiliar with ancient history, it began in the 1970s, soon
after I started publishing Hustler.
Jerry Falwell Sr., then head
of the Moral Majority Christian interest group, sued me for libel and the
“intentional infliction of emotional distress” over a Hustler parody
of a Campari ad that used the liqueur’s slogan: “You’ll never forget your first
time.” The parody featured an interview with Falwell waxing nostalgic about his
“first time”—with his mother in a Virginia outhouse.
The legal battle lasted five
years, from 1983 to 1988, including three decisions against me in federal
courts. There was an important principle at stake: the right of artists,
writers, and publishers to satirize public figures. Finally, I was vindicated
by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision written by conservative Chief
Justice William Rehnquist. This case is often cited as a landmark ruling for
the preservation of our First Amendment rights to free speech.
Ironically, Falwell Sr. and I
actually became friends later. We enjoyed many cordial visits, participated in
debates across the country, and even exchanged Christmas cards. I have to
concede that his friendship with me proves that, for the most part, he was
practicing an essential tenet of his faith, forgiveness, and was a sincere
Christian.
Which is more than can be
said for many of his fellow televangelists—the sorry parade of charlatans like
Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Paula White, and all the other prime-time Elmer
Gantrys—including the son, Jerry Falwell Jr. They’re obsessed above all with
sexual behavior, ignoring and subverting the core message of
Christianity—humility and compassion for the downtrodden—while embracing “prosperity
gospel,” which is to say the gospel of greed above all other values.
They support Republican
politicians eager to gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and other
programs designed to do what Jesus Christ strived for: the reduction of human
suffering in this vale of tears. They live in multimillion-dollar mansions and
fly around in private jets, while fleecing their flock for “prayer donations”
guaranteed to cure incurable diseases and afflictions. They forget that Jesus
Christ only lost his temper and acted violently once: when driving the
money-lenders from the temple. But they are not troubled in the least by the
banksters on Wall Street, who hoovered up millions from middle-class Americans,
granting the 1 percent a get-out-of-jail-free card to do it all over again.
Instead, these evangelists reserve the whip for gays, women who want to control
their own bodies, pot smokers, and other “heretics” who are only trying to lead
fulfilling lives. They actually work to increase the sum of human
suffering. They are peddlers of religious snake oil.
Eventually the gross
hypocrisy catches up with many of them. Such is the case with Jerry Falwell
Jr., now accused of having engaged in a seven year-long cuckold relationship
with his wife and a Miami hotel pool attendant. Jerry Jr. acknowledges the
affair, but claims that he was “not involved.” The pool attendant, Giancarlo
Granda, disputes this, stating that they invited him to a hotel room and
offered him a partnership in a real estate venture—perhaps a strange offer for
one cleaning swimming pools for a living. The scandal has been out there for a
while, but it was given renewed attention by an Instagram photo that Jerry Jr.
himself shared: of Jerry and another woman, not his wife, standing side by side
with their pants unzipped. Before this, Jerry Jr. was forced to apologize
for a tweet portraying one person in blackface and another in a KKK
outfit.
Which brings us to Donald
Trump. If there is one person who could be said to have lifted the orange
buffoon over the hump in 2016, it’s arguably Jerry Falwell Jr. The evangelical
base, crucial for the election of any national GOP politician, was not warming
up to Trump in the primaries, for good reason. Here was a man who had violated
almost every principle of the Christian faith: he was married three times;
accused of multiple extramarital affairs; repeatedly defrauded investors,
contractors, and students; habitually lied; and practiced thinly disguised
sexism and racism.
But Jerry
Jr. assured his nervous flock that Trump “lives a life of loving and
helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment.” After the Access
Hollywood tape came out, with Trump bragging about grabbing women’s
pussies with impunity because he’s a rich bastard, the flock started getting
cold feet again. But Jerry Jr. came galloping to the rescue with these choice
bits of flimflammery: “God called King David a man after God’s own heart
even though he was an adulterer and a murderer. You have to choose the leader
that would make the best king or president and not necessarily someone who
would be a good pastor.” And this: “It’s such a distortion of the
teachings of Jesus to say that what he taught us to do personally—to love our
neighbors as ourselves, help the poor—can somehow be imputed on a nation. Jesus
never told Caesar how to run Rome.”
Many of the flock were not
convinced by these rationalizations. Dozens of graduates from Liberty
University returned their diplomas in protest, accusing Falwell Jr. of having
corrupted the university’s “core mission and defiled its core beliefs,
substituting the worship of power and influence for the worship of God.”
Another former Liberty student, Kaitlyn Schiess, summed it up best in
a recent New York Times editorial: “At
Liberty, our minds may have been receiving correct content, but our hearts were
being trained to love wrongly: to love political power, physical security and
economic prosperity as higher goods than they are… A thirst for political
power—and sometimes, obtaining that power—begets more than corruption: It often
involves sexual immorality, degraded moral judgment and financial malpractice.”
It’s possible Jerry Falwell
Jr. will find forgiveness from his flock, but even if he doesn’t, the $10
million severance payout from Liberty University will surely ease his pain. As
for the rest of the country, I repeat the
sentiment that has guided me for decades: If there were ever to be a Second
Coming of Jesus Christ, I have no doubt that his first order of business would
be picking up a whip and banishing forever all the hucksters and false prophets
who have perverted his message.