Just wanted to pass along this articulate comment regarding Jerry Falwell's
appearance on GMA:
Email Michael Fernandes sent to the Good Morning America show, 9/20/01:
While I understand that ABC News is committed to reporting the news
without judgement or bias, I was appalled that you provided Jerry Falwell
with a nationally televised audience for hatred disguised as apology. It
served only to mask the point which you yourselves have tried to make many
times over the last horrific week - that hatred and intolerance exist in our
own culture as well, and should not be misconstrued as just another
religious point of view. Hatred is simply not Christian. Yet on your own
show Mr. Falwell was saying, in effect, that he stands by his hating
beliefs, offering only the explanation that he did not mean that God wanted
us to be ATTACKED BECAUSE of the people he hates. Imagine if Bin Laden had
released a statement trying to convince us that he believes that America is
the Devil and should be destroyed, BUT that he REGRETS that certain Islamic
individuals drove planes into the World Trade Towers killing thousands of
innocent people. Would we give a moment's credibility to such a statement?
Unlike Falwell, however, Bin Laden does not disguise his hatred behind
false and misleading apologies, which sadly makes Falwell clearly the more
cunning and duplicitous of the two fanatic religious leaders. What
continues to be true, after Falwell's empty and meaningless apology, is that
his teachings will continue to target specific groups for hatred, based upon
fundamental interpretations of his religion's primary text. There is
virtually no difference between that position and Bin Laden's fundamentalist
Islamic position. And if one would argue that Falwell at least does not
condone or encourage violence, I remind you of two things. First, that it
was only 25 years ago that Anita Bryant's hate-crusade espoused capital
punishment for homosexual acts. And second, speaking as a Psychotherapist,
that hatred disguising itself as non-violence breeds violence nonetheless,
and perhaps even moreso, and more insidiously, because it claims to be Love.
Perhaps you should offer equal air-time to Pro-Choice and Gay leaders so
that they can document some of their experiences that have been direct
results of the teachings of fundamentalist Christian preachers about the
so-called will of God. Bin Laden has presented us with an opportunity to
choose the sort of future we want for our world. I pray that we will choose
a world entirely free of the teachings of hatred, no matter which religion
or culture or country they spring from.
Michael Fernandes
Provincetown, MA
"Preacher preaching love like vengeance
Preaching love like hate..." --JM, "Tax Free"
Peace,
walt
