Let's Uncork Champagne to Celebrate Jerry Falwell's Death

It's rare for me to celebrate death, but in this case I do -- because the "man" who died was not a man but a heretic, a self-aggrandizing bigot with delusions of grandeur who used the pretense of his religion to espouse his own sham agenda.

So, it's true: I celebrate Falwell's passing, because I remember Matthew Sheppard. Instead of letting Sheppard's broken body rest in peace, Falwell used Sheppard's funeral as a platform to espouse the same ignorance that led to Sheppard's murder. In a situation so tragic that all but the most sadistic bigots had recused themselves, Falwell denied Sheppard's family and friends the right to quietly remember Sheppard's life and mourn his early death.

Falwell no longer deserves our attention. (He never deserved more than our pity.) Now that he is gone, I will try not to speak (or write) of him again. I want to indulge my fantasy -- a fantasy that he never existed -- even though I know that many of his disciples will now clamor to fill the heretical void left by his death.

While I don't believe in gods, devils, or afterlives, for a moment I take joy in the illusion that hell for Falwell would be a unique torture -- where he learns that god is a lesbian and the devil is gay -- and he spends eternity listening to an endless round of "Kumbaya," sung by members of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, buffeted by rainbow-coloured angel wings.