As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Queerty is profiling the people, issues and themes surrounding the tragedy that have made an indelible impact over the past decade, especially for the LGBT community.
Since ancient times it’s been common practice to blame homosexuals for any disaster, natural or otherwise. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah—what was actually a parable about hospitality got distorted into a stern warning against anal sex. (Look it up.)
But at the dawn of the 21st century, the combination of the 24-hour news cycle, the increasingly entrenched cultural wars and the rise of the Internet meant that random brain farts from Fundamentalist mouthbreathers could (and would) be heard around the world instantly and ad nauseum.
Just two days after the World Trade Center attacks, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell were trying to pin blame for the tragedy on someone. (Because their God doesn’t let shit like that just happen.) During an episode of 700 Club on Thursday, September 13, 2001, they began the finger-pointing—literally.
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Falwell: “The Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we’ve been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results…. What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule 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.
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.
Falwell: The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this.
Robertson: Well, yes.
Falwell: …The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. 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.”
We’re sure someone blamed abortionists and gays for Pearl Harbor and the Challenger explosion but with more dignity in the public forum—and the absence of YouTube videos—no one really heard much about it.
Since 9/11, though, the gays have been blamed—loudly and widely—for the Japanese tsunamis, Hurricane Katrina, the Haitian earthquake, the global recession and even the recent tremors in New York. Heck, there’s even a song in Sweden about it.
The fact that we all know about these accusations illustrates how much has changed since 9/11—perhaps its more a sign of information overload than anything else. We wish everyone would go back to ignoring these morons. (Yes, we realize that puts some blame squarely on our shoulders.)
Little Kiwi
once again, members of the religious right attempt to slander Gays but instead seem to be claiming that God doesn’t care about exterminating millions of Jews or capturing people from Africa, forcing them into slavery, treating them lower than dogs for more than a century and then forcing them to live in Segregation.
that seems to be the message.
“God doesn’t want gays to marry, but he was fine with black people being enslaved and was even more fine with more than 6 million Jews being exterminated in death camps”
gross.
Falwell and this Rabbi have a lot in common:
http://youtu.be/Y7tpQICIQpU
tallskin2
What more could be said about this “ugly little charlatan” than christopher hitchens says?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIviufQ4APo
watch and cackle uproariously
JayKay
Well thankfully he’s still dead.
ewe
Fallwell is still roasting slowly, very very slowly on a pig spit in Hell. BWAHHHHHAAAAA HHHHHAAAAAAA. Burn in eternal hell Jerry Fallwell. You were a charlatan while you were here and worst of all you knew you were and still continued. Jerry Fallwell is one of the few people i am glad is DEAD.
divkid
wow! we are all-powerful. all-conquering. have we not brought down great empires, such is are awe and evil renown!
…and yet, and yet… could i get a refund from that bitch from the soft-furnishings dept for a pricey cushion that once i got it home didn’t quite match the beaded throw…
*smdh* guess i’m just lacking in that homo-menacy-thing. i feel like i’ve let the side down.
dvlaries
Matt Cale of ruthless reviews gave Falwell exactly the send-off he deserved. Enjoy.
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/918/jerry-falwell-stone-fucking-dead-at-last/
michaelv
My hometown is actually where Jerry lived, so I got to grow up hearing this kind of crap all the time. Whenever I’d see him in public, people were always looking at him in awe and it was just sickening. Got to give him the finger once when I was 13 lol :3
TMikel
Yeah, well, Falwell is DEAD and I understand that he found eternity a bit warmer than expected and is forced give hugely hung demons constant blow jobs while others whip his backside with flaming whips.
fagburn
Arguing the Bible isn’t anti-gay is like trying to argue Mein Kampf isn’t anti-semetic.
They hate us – feck ’em.
the crustybastard
When future historians dissect the rise and fall of United States, I doubt they’ll ascribe our failures to being insufficiently pious.
Should be pretty clear to even today’s dimmest student that the the explosion of America’s political evangelical Christianity correlates quite closely to our recent and precipitously diminished fortunes.
WillBFair
We can’t just sit back and hope they’ll be ignored. We need to counter this bull—- with our achievements in history. Given all of our contributions, WE ARE Western culture, and we need to sing it from the mountain tops.
Kawneekwa
Is Pat Robertson dead yet? Let us pray.
Fashion Finder
Oh, look! Jerry is white! A white man despises the gays? Go figure.
Chad
funny how falwell claims this happened due to abortionist, gays and lesbians but he fails to mention adulterers. I have read the Holy Shit Bible, it calls adultry a sin too. But because that is a mostly hetero thing it is never brought up. This is why I hate religion.
Daez
Seems God lifted the veil on these two when they made these ugly comments in his name. Comments that were their downfall, I might add. Once these two went after 9/11 they sealed their fate in the eyes of so many. They are not exactly missed.
Sceth
Maybe we did help it happen. Maybe we the queers were part of the sticking point in the global trajectory of Liberalism that the terrorist ideologues hated. Maybe sodomy went through the minds of these haters every time they thought of their World Trade Center plot.
I would consider it an honor to be the target of these extremists as a symbol of freedom.
Unfortunately, given what we know about the construction of this terrorist movement dating back to Soviet involvement in the area, sexual values are likely at most tangential. B*tch did not do his research.
Ogre Magi
typical christian, this is the type of crap they always say
Trey
Its disapointing that there are hypocritical biggots like these guys that claim to be christians. They really do give the rest of us christians a bad rep when they do and say things like this. Its a disapointment.
the crustybastard
@Trey:
The only thing every religious person agrees on is “those other religious people are doing it wrong.”
The proof of Christianity’s failure as both religion and philosophy is that hypocritical bigots like these assholes really are the face of it — have been almost from the beginning — and all you self-styled “real Christians” and your so-called “living god” are either unwilling to, or incapable of, fixing it.
So spare us another serving of the “No True Scotsman” crap. Nobody here is dumb enough to eat it.