In the Media: The Death of Falwell

This is what some of the major American newspapers write about the passing of Jerry Falwell:

• Washington Times gives Reagan’s view on Falwell:

  ”He was a wonderful human being,” said Michael Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan.

  Mr. Reagan told NBC News as the network initially announced Mr. Falwell’s death that the Baptist preacher and his father had ”a moral partnership.”

• John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, tells New York Times that homophobia and the opposition to women’s rights were at the very core of Falwell’s religious work:

  ”Behind the idea of the Moral Majority was this notion that there could be a coalition of these different religious groups that all agree on abortion and homosexuality and other issues even if they never agreed on how to read the Bible or the nature of God.”

• In the Los Angeles Times, Matt Foreman, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, extendes condolences to those close to Falwell, but adds:

  ”Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation’s appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonised and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”

(Photo: Jerry Falwell gestures while talking with Ronald Reagan after a candle lighting ceremony in support of prayer in schools held on 25 September 1982. By Charles Tasnadi.)