• Listen to this segment

GUEST: Frederick Clarkson, journalist and author who has written about the religious right for 25 years., and is the editor of Talk to Action, a national interactive blog site about the religious right

Reverend Jerry Falwell, one of the principle architects of the rise of the religious right, died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 73. Falwell was found unconscious in his office in Liberty University and was pronounced dead one hour later. As a Christian conservative, Falwell was an opponent of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King in the 1960’s. In 1979, Falwell founded the “Moral Majority,” a group which prominently inserted religious fundamentalism into the conservative movement in the United States. Up until it disbanded in 1989, the Moral Majority had played a central role in defining politically and religiously conservative stances against homosexual rights, feminism and abortion. Falwell’s political influence waned in his final years, however, making controversial public statements that he would later be pressured into apologizing for. Just two days after the 9/11 attacks, Falwell made an appearance on Pat Robertson’s television blaming secular forces in the United States for the attacks. According to Falwell, “the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians, all of them who try to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’” Despite such extremist positions, the mainstream media as well as Republican candidates vying for the presidency have offered their praise in Falwell’s passing. Senator John McCain, who once labeled Falwell as an “agent of intolerance,” lauded the reverend as a man of “distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and his country.”

For more information, visitwww.talk2action.org

Special thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archives for sharing archival material of Jerry Fallwell.