Last call for Schadenfreude

I hadn't really planned on writing anything about Jerry Falwell, given that the whole gamut of lamentations and celebrations hit the the web about 60 seconds after his death was announced. I ran across something this morning, however -- a blog-post from CourageMan, a Catholic blogger, taking Blade editor Kevin Naff to task for his break-out-the-Champagne celebration of Falwell's passing. CourageMan dug up an interview we did at Metro Weekly a few years back with Tammy Faye Messner, in which she talks about her forgiveness of Falwell (as well as her husband, Jim Bakker). That was an interview I didn't expect a lot from, but got a lot out of -- and she's always seemed perfectly sincere in her forgiveness, even as she explains how hurt and betrayed she felt. Anyway, CourageMan's point seems to be that if Tammy Faye can forgive Falwell, people like Naff might want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I've been tracking some conversations among some gays and lesbians urging restraint in response to Falwell's death, because big death celebrations don't play well politically in the mainstream. That in turn generates defiant calls to "Fuck that shit, anyone up for some nude grave dancing?" I'm with the former, and not because I have any great need to "forgive" Falwell for his detestable actions against gays, of which there are many. It's because I'm uncomfortable with the celebration of death. Perhaps that's because in my disbelieving agnosticism, I strongly suspect that death is the end -- no afterlife, no reincarnation, no second chances. That makes even the death of a rank bastard something to be at least maudlin about.

Also, while I find Falwell's political and religious activism to be reprehensible, perhaps grave dancing could be saved for those more truly monstrous in their crimes -- Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, the genocidaires of Rwanda, and too many others to count. In Falwell's case, toasting the Grim Reaper is a bit of, um, overkill.

Comments

[CourageMan]

Mr. Bugg:

Thanks for linking to my site. And thanks for what I take to be your general agreement with my point that grave-dancing and celebration is unseemly, no matter the person.

I think this might have been a grammar slip or mental fart rather than a disagreement. But when you write ...

Anyway, CourageMan's point seems to be that if Tammy Faye can forgive Falwell, people like Naff might want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

... that would be exactly what my point was if "her" should have been "him" (i.e., Falwell). Or, and maybe this is what you mean by "give [Tammy Faye] the benefit of the doubt," because of *her* ... who she is and what she lost at Falwell's hands ... gays should be able to display at least as much class regarding Falwell-in-death as did Tammy Faye (and Jesse Jackson and, as I mentioned in another post, Larry Flynt).

The only Christian response to hatred of a person, even rational hatred, is to forgive him and put it in God's hands. Yes, it takes saintly virtue to do that, but the viciously homophobic Catholic Church teaches that homosexual persons are capable of sainthood.