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On the one hand, he was a fellow US citizen who saw things different than I did. I see that a lot even here on DU. Folks just disagree on things. Does not mean I am glad they are dead when they pass.
On the other hand I see how vile some of the shit was he spewed - he let Christians down and lambasted gays, etc, and so on. Not a voice of reason by any stretch.
He was an opponent of mine on many fronts. While also being a fellow American whose rights I respected when it came to disagreeing with me.
He was an institution, a force we have fought many years. And he had a family, friends, and many others who are upset that he left this world so suddenly.
I am not without compassion in this regard. I - and many here - have felt the loss of someone close to us. And it stings. No matter how that person is painted by others, we still feel loss and great sadness when someone we care about is swept away. So I can grasp how those close to him felt. It has to hurt to have someone you loved/knew to be gone all of the sudden.
Jerry is dead. So is another Jerry I know personally - my X girlfriend's dad (he died in March). Her dad, Jerry, stood in the way of her and I and made it hard for us to be a couple. Which is why we split up. As angry as I was with him about it all, I still tried to see how it affected my X GF and did not make it about myself.
He made my life a lot harder by his actions and words. But in the end, it all worked out. My X GF is happily married, as am I, and she and I still talk and have a daughter together. I tried to be nice to him, he to I in some ways, but in the end he saw me as a threat and it destroyed a once beautiful relationship.
When he died my wife remarked that I was probably pretty happy about it after all I went through. I wasn't. He was a decent man to his daughter, just controlling. He did what he thought was right, even though it was wrong.
I wish today he was still here so I could sit down and talk to him. Show him where things went wrong and maybe open his eyes a little - which I think he started to see after I left and when his wife passed on. I gave him a granddaughter he loved, and I treated his daughter well. But still I was not good enough.
Falwell treated many on the liberal side like shit. And part of me wishes he was alive right now so that we could keep trying to educate him and his followers.
Now someone else will takeover, turn this into something they can feed off of, and point to the grave dancing as one more example of us 'evil liberals' partying over the death of someone we disagreed with.
He did hurt us, our cause, our glbt friends. But in the end - I am hoping I am not just like him, celebrating the death of others and blaming them for it.
I am not Jerry Falwell. I am me, The Straight Story - and I won't be like the people I disagree with.
I am better than they are, and I can see the positive - and weep for the death of a fellow citizen. Even when I think they are full of shit.
He was our enemy, and I will be damned if I become like him.
He was wrong, on so many levels. He is gone. But how he feels, what he believes, lives on in the mind of his followers. I don't want to strengthen their beliefs by handing them the martyr ammo they want.
I want simply to say - I am sorry for your loss, I know it must hurt. I will be here to listen, even though he and I were polar opposites. He may have hated me, and my best friends, but hate is not a value I eschew. I have plenty of reasons to hate other people in my life, but I make the choice not to do so - because I don't want to become you.
And if I do become like you, then I have truly lost my liberal self. And there is no way in hell I will give that up, for if I did I would become that which I despise.
I am not you, I am not him. I am me. And while he might have been filled with hate, I am not.
He was an asshole in so many ways. God forbid I become like he was.
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