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Jerry Falwell is finally in a gay/muslim/feminist free place (pg. 2)
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| LazFX |
Tinky Winky says bye-bye to Jerry Falwell
May 16, 2007 | Eight years ago the Rev. Jerry Falwell warned parents that BBC children's television star Tinky Winky was a hidden symbol of homosexuality. Falwell died Tuesday at 73, and the world wanted to talk to Tinky Winky.
"They're calling again, again, again," he said by phone from his home in Islington, in London. A spokesman said the former "Teletubbies" costar got more than 100 calls from reporters in the hour following news of Falwell's death.
"Oh dear, it's easy to say the wrong thing here," he said. "Tinky Winky sad whenever someone dies, but ..." He left it hanging there.
In a 1999 article in his National Liberty Journal headlined "Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet," Falwell pointed out that Winky could be taken as representing gays.
"He is purple -- the gay pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay pride symbol," Falwell wrote. "The character, whose voice is that of a boy, has been found carrying a red purse in many episodes and has become a favorite character among gay groups worldwide."
In the resulting media firestorm, gay-rights activists called for Winky to come out while Christian groups demanded the BBC fire him so that he couldn't, in Falwell's words, "role-model the gay lifestyle."
"It was traumatizing, really," says Winky, who now owns a holistic healing center and makes occasional appearances on British TV. "I'm a very private Teletubby. I just wanted to get away, go over the hills and far away. But when you're 7 feet tall and purple with an antenna on your head and a TV screen in your belly, where are you going to go?"
Winky says he tried to contact Falwell after the article came out, but the evangelist wouldn't take his calls.
"I wanted to know why he didn't talk to me first," Winky says. "It's not like I'm hard to reach. Have the pinwheel call me. But really I just wanted to clap him on the head with Tinky Winky bag."
The star never has clarified his sexual orientation, insisting on his privacy and denying rumors over the years that he had affairs with two of his costars on the 1997-2001 show, the male Dipsy and the female Po.
"We love each other very much," he says. "Big hug. But it's not like that. It was a kids show, know what I mean? And this Falwell guy and his followers wanted to turn us into something else. We weren't modeling a gay lifestyle and we weren't trying to corrupt anyone's kids. We were just kids ourselves, really. Give us a little Tubby toast or custard and a film of some kids washing clothes or something, that's all we needed. We didn't give a about modeling a lifestyle."
Tinky Winky sounds angry. The wounds are still raw.
"I'm just practicing my craft, working for the kids, and all at once the tabloids are everywhere on me," he says. "I couldn't even go out. Was it a gay club? Was I talking to a woman? It was bollocks."
Winky chuckles. "I must say, though," he says, "without getting into too many details, we had a girl in the group who ran around this kids show yelling, 'Cooter! Cooter!' And I'm the gay one? Do me a favor."
Through a spokeswoman, Po declined to comment for this article.
Winky says the Teletubbies stay in touch, and he remains friends with both Dipsy, who owns a nightclub in West London where Winky is often seen, and Po. Winky says he and Laa-Laa never really got along during the show's run, but, "We're fine now. We've come to appreciate each other."
Asked about Falwell's death, Winky turns serious and chooses his words carefully.
"I'm not going to pretend I'm sadder than I am," he says. "There were late nights during the dark times when I wished to hear news like this. I'd be lying if I denied that. I don't feel that way anymore. I like to think I've grown over the years, gotten past all that pain.
"But at the end of the day, I'm not terribly sad, and I think a lot of people feel the same way. Jerry Falwell was a divisive person, a hateful person, and what I've tried to be all about, in the Teletubbies days and since then, has been love. I've got to keep it that way. I don't want anybody feeling good about it when it's my time for Tubby bye-bye."
>>SOURCE<< |
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| Jake Benson |
| quote: | Originally posted by nrjizer
And Fred Phelps is going to petition his funeral.
No, I'm not kidding. |
Wait, is this the Phelps that petitions the dead soldiers' funerals? Does he think Falwell is going to hell too for not living forever? :conf: |
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| Spirit5 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jake Benson
Wait, is this the Phelps that petitions the dead soldiers' funerals? Does he think Falwell is going to hell too for not living forever? :conf: |
For being too soft on gay people ;)
He wasn't hard enough..if you know what I mean :D
"your going straight to hell you fag loving sadomite!"
Yeah even if someone hates gay people, that's not enough....he wasn't picketing soldier's funerals or calling for the death of the USA! They want you to be extreme! Even those like Falwell, who are reactionaries, are quite mild compared to extreme reactionaries like Phelps and his group....they are a hate group using religion as a means of control/cover, not a religious group who happens to hate haha. |
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| Krypton |
| Thank god for Jerry Falwell. This country would be in the grips of a France-like socialism. |
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| Groundhog Boy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jake Benson
Wait, is this the Phelps that petitions the dead soldiers' funerals? Does he think Falwell is going to hell too for not living forever? :conf: |
| quote: | http://www.towleroad.com/2007/05/westboro_baptis.html
Westboro Baptist to Picket Jerry Falwell Funeral
The haters can't even stand each other.
Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church has announced plans to picket the funeral of Reverend Jerry Falwell. They say: "WBC will preach at the memorial service of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone'. There is little doubt that Falwell split Hell wide open the instant he died. The evidence is compelling, overwhelming, and irrefragable."
According to their lovely website, GodHatesAmerica.com,
"1. Falwell was a true Calvinistic Baptist when he was a young preacher in Springfield, Missouri, and sold his soul to Free-Willism (Arminianism) for lucre.
2. Falwell bitterly and viciously attacked WBC because of WBC's faithful Bible preaching -- thereby committing the unpardonable sin -- otherwise known as the sin against the Holy Ghost.
3. Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc. All for lucre -- making him guilty of their sins." |
Yeah, so I stole the post from a gay guy on another board. I love when you go to a source site and see guys in bikini briefs.
The story is true, though. Go to http://www.godhatesamerica.com/ the site of the Westboro Baptist Church. Falwell apparently called Fred a crazy nut.
Why do you think Fox puts these people on panels? It's because it completely skews the "central" position by distorting it far to the crazy right. |
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| spiflicated |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Thank god for Jerry Falwell. This country would be in the grips of a France-like socialism. |
Um... are you kidding? |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by spiflicated
Um... are you kidding? |
Um, no...
Falwell is the man who mobilized the religious right into a powerful political force in Washington. Without him, Reagan might not have been president; the republican majority was restored in the Senate in the early 80's, etc. This is after the debacle of Jimmy Carter. Now, for those who are lefties, as this thread shows, there is no love for the man, but as for my conservative self, I thank him for his contribution to the conservative movement.
If there is a heaven as the bible describes it, Falwell is in it. RIP |
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| Lilith |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Thank god for Jerry Falwell. This country would be in the grips of a France-like socialism. |
True, it's in the grips conservative fascism is so much dearer to some people's hearts (or lack there of) and the only liberal dosing is a rampaging paranoia that the *insert public enemy of the month* (muslims, jews, blacks and gays) are out to destroy you all.
It won't be some namby pamby gay guy, the dykes, the muslims, man with a tan or anyone else that wrecks your country, it'll be some uptight, good old fashioned, church going white boy that sends it down the crapper. There's a proven track record of them doing fairly well at it so far. |
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| Spirit5 |
| Uh actually for social conservatives he is fine, but for traditional or fiscal conservatives, I think he was their downfall. Sure they can argue that Reagan was a pretty fiscal conservative, but he still pandered to the religious right and won their votes, obviously with the support of Falwell. But there are traditional conservatives like John Dean who worked for the Nixon administration and wrote "Conservatives Without Conscience" where he talks about both the neo-conservatives and the social/religious conservatives taking over (hijacking) the Republican party and ultimately their downfall and self-destruction, which is continuing to happen. Conservatives prior to Reagan, were less panderers to the religious right and more for the seperation of church and state than these guys are (who basically want to dismantle it, weaken the seperation). |
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| Lilith |
It's not so much the religious conservatives or even economically you've got to worry about, it's simply the case that the US has run out of 'goodwill' with the international community who have been fed up with it's actions since the decade after WW2. It'll essentially end up marginalised with people who just have their own short term agenda's of getting into office every 4 years being in the administration and the rest of the world that's just basically going to cast their own vote of 'no confidence' at the US's behaviour.
Doesn't really matter if it's democrat or republican, they're all fairly much the same brat pack at heart, same social demographic, same schools, they just pick their party on the basis that daddy was in it and the social networking is already in place for political ascension. |
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| Jake Benson |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Falwell is the man who mobilized the religious right into a powerful political force in Washington. |
Yay, religion in politics! Because it makes so much sense to use a fairy tale book to justify that two men having sex is wrong and should be punished. :rolleyes:
| quote: | | Without him, Reagan might not have been president; |
You mean the guy that completely ignored the AIDS crises until his last year in office because he disregarded it as a gay disease? Guess that's why god gave him Alzheimers...um, I mean bless his soul for being so noble.
| quote: | | the republican majority was restored in the Senate in the early 80's, etc. This is after the debacle of Jimmy Carter. |
And Republicans in the 80s did what?
| quote: | | Now, for those who are lefties, as this thread shows, there is no love for the man, but as for my conservative self, I thank him for his contribution to the conservative movement. |
I wouldn't call them lefties, but people who believe in equality for everyone.
| quote: | | If there is a heaven as the bible describes it, Falwell is in it. RIP |
Nope, I'd have to agree with Phelps on this one. Falwell is definitely in hell. |
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| DJ Shibby |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Um, no...
Falwell is the man who mobilized the religious right into a powerful political force in Washington. Without him, Reagan might not have been president; the republican majority was restored in the Senate in the early 80's, etc. This is after the debacle of Jimmy Carter. Now, for those who are lefties, as this thread shows, there is no love for the man, but as for my conservative self, I thank him for his contribution to the conservative movement.
If there is a heaven as the bible describes it, Falwell is in it. RIP |
LOL
Wow, human beings are so ridiculous... it's really lovely, thanks for being you. |
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