Jerry Falwell and AIDS: A Brief History of a Judgmental Response

(This was originally written about four years ago as my senior colloquium paper at the University of New Hampshire. During a recent debate at Fox Sports regarding Tim Hardaway's controversial comments on homosexuals, a fellow blogger questioned why my focus lay solely on Hardaway while appearing to ignore the white players and religious figures who make the same type of comments. In response, I mentioned that I had done this paper some time ago and promised to post it. And if it's good enough for Fox Sports, it's good enough for One More Dying Quail.

One thing you should know before starting this: it's really friggin' long (about 14 pages single-spaced in Microsoft Word) so consider yourselves warned. My personal recommendation is to follow Run Up The Score's advice: print it out and take a break at work tomorrow. Seriously - you work hard. You've earned it.)

Introduction

The first two years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States were a period of quiet uneasiness and behind the scenes scrambling. Major groups of all kinds—government organizations, religious institutions, and media outlets, among others—showed a certain reluctance to assess and address the potential seriousness of the epidemic from the beginning. This is seen primarily in the reaction of organized religion during those two years—in short, there was no reaction. 1983 stands as a bold point in AIDS history, as that year marked the first time any religious group took a public stand on the issue.

Of the new voices that clamored to present an opinion on AIDS in 1983 and beyond, few were louder than that of Jerry Falwell, pastor of the 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. During a rally in Cincinnati in July of that year, Falwell infamously called AIDS a “gay plague” while challenging President Ronald Reagan to make policy changes that would protect the “innocent American public.” In doing so, he raised the ire of the White House, which would rather have ignored the growing epidemic indefinitely, and homosexual activists, who were understandably upset by the outdated characterization of the disease. Facing his greatest moral challenge at perhaps the height of his national appeal, Falwell also placed himself in position to be a figurehead for the up and coming battle between Christian fundamentalism and the homosexual community.

Sources

Although every religious group handled AIDS differently, it is possible to classify their actions according to six varying response types. In the book AIDS as an Apocalyptic Metaphor, Susan Palmer introduces these responses: the judgmental, the compassionate, the healing, the threatened, the isolating, and the pragmatic. While the study of each of these should fascinate a serious student of religion, one in particular is more interesting than the others because of the controversy it inevitably stirs up. The judgmental response, Palmer writes, “…is most often found among fundamentalist groups, who tend to view the disease as a form of divine punishment…there is no pity or aid extended to PWAs [People With AIDS], who are considered responsible for their fate, and consequently should be shunned.” The first half of this description neatly coincides with the reaction of Jerry Falwell. Falwell was one of the most prominent fundamentalist figures of the 1970s and 80s, an absolute believer in the truth of the Bible; as such, he quickly developed the belief that AIDS was a punishment from God for the perverted lifestyle led by homosexuals.

Because the issue being argued here is actually an interplay between AIDS, Jerry Falwell, and the homosexual community of the United States, a variety of sources are necessary for its complete study. When dealing with the virus itself, historical information is key—before trying to understand the responses to the epidemic, it is important to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of its origins. There are two major sources for AIDS history that will be used here: And the Band Played On, a 1987 book written by journalist Randy Shilts, and AIDS Doctors: Voices From the Epidemic, published in 2000 by Ronald Bayer and Gerald M. Oppenheimer. Shilts’ effort explores the development of AIDS from a no-name disease to a devastating killer that slipped under the medical and government radars. Using his journalistic training and firsthand knowledge of the epidemic, Shilts follows the virus from Denmark to New York, from homosexual men to pregnant women, from GRID to AIDS. Long considered the ultimate source for early AIDS history, it is invaluable here because it humanizes and personalizes the disease that has become a global killer. As more people have died over the years, AIDS has evolved into a faceless disease. Shilts draws his reader back to a time when not everybody was affected, when not everybody knew somebody with the disease. As we see each character becoming more involved in some way, it reminds us that the statistics we read and hear about are real people.

A negative aspect of Shilts’ work is that with so much information being presented, the reader sometimes gets lost in the history. Bayer and Oppenheimer address this weakness by focusing an entire portion of their discussion on early medical aspects of AIDS, thereby ensuring that the reader maintains a firm understanding of the chronology of the disease. The result is a more straightforward narrative than that seen in Shilts.

Sources on Jerry Falwell (including those on fundamentalism in general) and his relationship to homosexuality are found in a variety of arenas. While there are several books available on these topics, some of the best information comes from 1980s newspaper articles and interviews written and conducted when Falwell was at the height of his power. Also useful is Falwell’s own web site, www.falwell.org, which has links to biographical information, and the home page of his church, www.trbc.com, which provides past sermons, as well as a searchable database for frequently asked questions.

Focal Point

The larger question here is not whether or not Jerry Falwell fits into the judgmental response group—it will be assumed for the purpose of this paper that such a statement is true, based on his initial reaction to the growing epidemic. Rather, the intended focus of this paper is to examine the life and ministry of Jerry Falwell—his church, his Moral Majority organization, his personal life—and try to understand how characterizations such as the “gay plague” came about; that is, to understand his early interaction with AIDS and the people who suffered from it. Such an understanding will be achieved through three parts. Part one is a brief outline of the first two to three years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, a period of time roughly covering 1981-83. Part two is a look at the life of Jerry Falwell. And Part three is a closer examination of the relationship that was forged between Falwell, homosexuals, and a microscopic virus that has plagued the world for nearly twenty-five years. From these three parts, it will be possible to better understand how and why that relationship was formed.

Origin of an Epidemic

No one can really be sure where the AIDS epidemic and the virus that caused it came from originally. “Epidemics do not announce themselves, “ write Ronald Bayer and Gerald Oppenheimer, “but enter on cat’s paws.” In other words, they have already made themselves at home before we even know to look for them. While this silent approach can make it difficult to ascertain the exact origins of any epidemic, it does not mean that we know nothing about the earliest years of AIDS. Through careful research and documentation, it has been possible to discover the names of the first people who showed symptoms of the disease that was to become AIDS, as well as those who were the first to die. What we do not know with any certainty is who was infected first, when exactly this happened, and who was the first person in America to actually carry the virus. One thing we can feel fairly confident about is that the disease causing agents were alive and flourishing within the bathhouses that acted as meeting places for homosexual men on both coasts of the United States in the 1970s. These environments, with their promiscuous and anonymous sexual behavior, proved perfect for the spread of the sexually transmitted epidemic and disastrous for the reputation of the entire homosexual population. While the suggestion of their closure was a hotly debated topic in the early 1980s, the bathhouses were also an early target of Jerry Falwell, who saw them as a representation of the promiscuous, immoral gay lifestyle.

In the (official) Beginning…

To anyone who reads the history of the first years of the AIDS epidemic, it is apparent that there were in fact two separate beginnings for this terrible disease: an official and unofficial one (or the one we can document and the one we cannot). The epidemic that would become AIDS officially entered the lives of the American people over twenty-one years ago. On June 5, 1981, University of California-Los Angeles Dr. Mark Gottlieb and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Dr. Wayne Shandera published an article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a weekly newsletter distributed by the CDC. The article, entitled “Pneumocystis pneumonia—Los Angeles,” detailed an outbreak of pneumocystis carinii (PCP), a rare pneumonia that had struck five patients of Gottlieb and Dr. Joel Weisman in the Los Angeles area in the previous year. While doctors were certainly concerned about the sudden presence of PCP in so many people all at once, they were more worried about a pair of secondary problems that were related to these initial infections. First, all the Los Angeles cases involved homosexual men, a fact that the MMWR report said, “suggests some association between some aspect of a homosexual lifestyle or disease acquired through sexual contact”; and second, PCP never appeared without an underlying suppression of the immune system. Simply put, some other infection had to disable the immune system, so the pneumonia could enter the body without being attacked. Once the suppressing factor was identified and remedied, the PCP could be treated easily. In these patients, however, no immune deficiency became immediately evident. As far as the doctors could see, there was no nasty illness clearing the way; instead, PCP seemed to be the primary problem.

Four weeks later, on July 3, a second report appeared in the MMWR, this time regarding the appearance of Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), a cancer so rare in the US at the time that the “average” dermatologist could only be expected to diagnose one case in his career, if that. The disease, which to that point had typically struck Jewish and Italian men in their later years, was generally not deadly; those who suffered from it usually died of old age or an unrelated illness. As with the “gay pneumonia” (as PCP eventually came to be called), however, KS was striking middle aged, healthy homosexuals at an alarming rate. The purple lesions that signaled the onset of the disease quickly proved to be more than a mere cosmetic inconvenience. In time, they became a death card. As the disease became more prevalent and everybody knew somebody with a related illness, the truth became horribly evident: this was not regular KS. Those who had the lesions died.

Gaetan Dugas

Randy Shilts speculates that the unofficial beginning of the epidemic took place on
July 4, 1976, when people from all over the world descended upon New York City to celebrate the 200th birthday of America. Ships from fifty-five countries brought their sailors to the city’s harbor to join in “the greatest party ever known.” Millions of people gathered without a care in the world. Although they could not possibly have realized it at the time, July 4, 1976, may have been the last truly innocent night some of them would ever know.

It is not clear if Gaetan Dugas was in New York for the Bicentennial celebration. Given the fact that the French-Canadian airline steward did not venture to San Francisco, the gay Mecca of America, until 1978, it seems unlikely that he counted himself among the millions of people who descended upon New York in 1976. Whether he was present at the celebration or not, however, it is apparent that Gaetan Dugas played an important role in the early history of the AIDS epidemic. AIDS was a disease spread in part through numerous anonymous sexual relations; Gaetan was the king of anonymity. Lovers were interchangeable to him, monogamy as offensive as a four-letter word. When asked by CDC doctors in 1981 to estimate his lifetime sexual encounters, he came up with an average of 250 new partners a year, in ten years as an active homosexual.

The impact of Dugas on the spread of AIDS in the United States was extraordinary. After careful study by CDC sociologist Bill Darrow, it was concluded that he had had either direct or secondary sexual contact with 40 of the first 248 gay men diagnosed with GRID (the original medical name for AIDS) in the United States, including nine of the first nineteen in Los Angeles alone. In the report on his findings, Darrow labeled the young airline steward “Patient Zero,” a reference to the incredible role he had played in the movement of the disease around North America.

Many AIDS patients died shortly after the first physical symptoms of the disease appeared. Whether this is an indication of the severity of the illnesses involved or a resignation of fate is not an issue; what is important to note is that Gaetan Dugas lived for nearly four years after being diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma in June 1980. In March 1982, he met with Darrow, who was still trying to piece together the path taken by the early epidemic. While the meeting ultimately proved helpful to the sociologist in that he was able to gather large amounts of information regarding the sexual history of Dugas, it turned out to be disastrous on another front. It was during this encounter that the French-Canadian first realized that he might have been passing a new and deadly disease around to his many lovers; it was also when Darrow innocently suggested that he might have contracted it from someone else. In the two years that followed, Gaetan Dugas refused to stop engaging in sexual relations, attending bathhouses and gay bars when the mood struck him. With the lights turned down low, the KS lesions were not noticeable. It became a crusade of sorts for him, his own personal form of payback against an unknown adversary: engage in a sexual act with a handsome young fellow of his choosing, then turn up the lights after the fact, revealing the cancerous lesions on his face and body. “Gay cancer…maybe you’ll get it too.”

Gaetan Dugas lived for two years after the ill-fated meeting with Bill Darrow. In that time, he became increasingly unpopular among the gay community in San Francisco, which did not appreciate the cavalier approach he took to the lives of others. He went back to Canada, where AIDS eventually caught up with him. “Patient Zero” died on March 10, 1984. The official cause of death was kidney failure, the result of four years of KS and four separate battles with PCP.

Beyond Homosexuality

Immediately after the initial MMWR report, Dr. Jim Curran, head of the CDC’s Venereal Disease Prevention Services at the time, became involved in research on the burgeoning epidemic. He immediately noted the near exclusivity with which KS and PCP were striking homosexual men. According to Curran, this presented an interesting yet promising dilemma. As explained by Randy Shilts, the CDC doctor could not remember any disease that struck victims based solely on social terms or sexual lifestyle. Geography, physiology—those were contributing factors, not an individual’s social group. The early focus of the epidemic on homosexuals, therefore, gave Curran and his staff a very big clue: there had to be some factor within the gay community that was causing people to get sick. Given the extraordinary sex lives of most of the early patients, sexual transmission was quickly determined to be that factor. Such a realization was important, despite the fact that it took quite some time to prove conclusively, because it signaled that AIDS was not a disease of homosexuals, but of the sexually promiscuous. Later, drug users would show that it was also a disease of the careless, a concept not addressed by Jerry Falwell in 1983.

Even this early breakthrough, however, could not resolve the damage that had already been done to the homosexual community. Gay cancer. Gay pneumonia. Those four words tell the whole story. These were “gay diseases,” and would remain so in the minds of many, even after they began infecting other high-risk groups, such as drug users, hemophiliacs, and blood transfusion recipients.

Affected Groups

The name GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) suggests that homosexuals were the only group affected by the epidemic in its first year. This was most certainly not the case, although they did remain the group with the largest percentage of infections by far. They were only unfortunate enough to be the first, a fact that can be largely attributed to the more liberated lifestyle of the 1970s. The disease progressed quickly to intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs. These two groups had very different impacts on AIDS history. Drug addicts were generally assumed to be gay, a belief that was not helped by the fact that they often died before doctors were able to treat and interview them. Hemophiliacs, however, were ultimately responsible for opening the eyes of the public and medical community to the potential problems with the nation’s blood supply. They were also important because their infections made it clear that this was not a disease for gays and druggies; although people who practiced unsafe sex or used dirty needles were still at the highest risk, anyone was capable of getting it. The only thing these hemophiliacs had done wrong was be born without the appropriate clotting agents in their blood, a medical problem that sometimes necessitated large transfusions of factor VIII, a “miracle drug” that replaced those agents. When it was first introduced, factor VIII was a savior to hemophiliacs, a chance to live a long, normal life; in 1982, it became an executioner, turning a relatively simple medical problem into Jerry Falwell’s “innocent American public.”

Finding a Name

The realization that hemophiliacs could be struck by this “gay disease” had a huge impact, in that it led scientific leaders to determine a proper name for the disease. It can be easy to forget that AIDS was not always AIDS. The early years of the epidemic were marked by confusion over a name, especially after it became obvious that Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumocystis were in fact caused by the necessary immune suppression—doctors just did not know what it was. The original moniker, after “gay cancer,” was GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), an acronym that overemphasized the epidemic’s proximity to the gay community. Also stressing this relationship were ACIDS (Acquired Community Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and CAIDS (Community Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome); the word “Community” in both cases referred to homosexuals. At a July 27, 1982, meeting addressing the issue of blood supply contamination by infected donors, it was suggested that since hemophiliacs had begun showing signs of the disease, it was no longer appropriate to link homosexuals alone to the epidemic. GRID was dropped completely, and the community reference was eliminated from CAIDS and ACIDS, leaving behind the now familiar name: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.

Jerry Falwell and AIDS

While homosexuals such as Gaetan Dugas were contentedly enjoying the freedom of the gay liberation movement and doctors were celebrating advances in the fight against Hepatitis B (thought to be the last great sexually transmitted disease), Jerry Falwell was preparing to leap headfirst into the fray. On all fronts, the late 1970s were truly the calm before the storm.

Moral Majority

Falwell originally believed that Christians should resist the impulse to involve themselves in political activity. In 1965, he delivered a sermon called “Ministers and Marchers” in which he explained, “…we need to rededicate ourselves to the great task of turning this world back to God. The preaching of the gospel is the only means by which this can be done.” As time passed, however, and he saw what he perceived as the continued moral decline of American society, Falwell totally reconsidered that idea. By 1976, he was telling his followers, “This idea of “religion and politics don’t mix” was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country.” In 1979, he founded the Moral Majority, an organization that served as a “vehicle for fundamentalist voters.” The emphasis was not on government control, but on government involvement among like-minded moral individuals. Said Falwell, “We are not a political party…and do not intend to become one. Moral Majority is not a religious organization attempting to control the government. Moral majority is a special interest group of millions of Americans who share the same moral values.”

At the same time, Falwell made it clear that while his organization was meant to bring power to conservative voters and candidates for office, he did not expect it to cater to a particular religious ideology:

The acceptability of any candidate could never be based upon one’s religious affiliation. Our support of candidates is based upon two criteria: a) the commitment of the candidate to the principles that we espouse; b) the competency of the candidate to fill that office.

This mission statement of sorts was realized in actual practice as the organization grew and invitations were extended to conservatives of virtually any religion. Though such offers were rarely accepted, such a high degree of openness is interesting because so close an association with people of other belief systems works against Falwell’s fundamentalist religious beliefs.

Falwell officially disbanded the Moral Majority in 1989, “claiming that it had achieved its goal of establishing a moral basis for the reform of U.S. society.” Although it had only survived for ten years, it was still an organization that, during its life, had been proclaimed by some “…as the most important new political force to emerge in America in decades.”

The Life of Jerry Falwell

Long before he became a dominant political and religious figure, Jerry Falwell was just another son of the south. Born on August 11, 1933, in Lynchburg, Virginia, he was (along with twin brother Gene) the last of Carey and Helen Falwell’s five children. Carey supported his family as a successful entrepreneur, while Helen was a homemaker. Jerry Falwell credits each of his parents with some strong aspect of his own personality: from Carey, the knowledge and appreciation of the value of hard work, and from Helen, a tangible example of what steadfast religious faith could mean to an individual.

After graduating from Brookville High School in 1950, Falwell enrolled in classes at Lynchburg College. During his sophomore year there, he had an experience that altered his life forever. On January 20, 1952, he was “saved” at Park Avenue Baptist Church in Lynchburg. Overnight, he transformed from a teenager who did not know where his life was headed into a young man who knew, if nothing else, that he wanted to serve God in some way. The following year he enrolled at Baptist Bible College, where he spent four years trying to figure out exactly what form his devotion to the Lord would take. In his senior year, the Lord figured it out for him. While working for a church in Kansas City, the pastor asked him to fill in one Sunday. Of that day, Falwell later recalled, “God used my sermon to bring 19 people to Christ in that large church.” Among the converts was an elderly woman who realized, through the young preacher’s sermon, that she had never actually been saved, despite her many years in the church. The significance and power of the situation made a mark on the young Falwell; he has “never doubted since that God called me to be a pastor.”

After graduating from BBC in 1956, Falwell originally intended to start a church in Macon, Georgia. Before he could make the move, however, a group of 35 Lynchburg families presented him with an enticing offer: they were starting their own church, and they needed a pastor. After much thought and prayer, Falwell accepted. Thomas Road Baptist Church opened in June 1956, with those 35 families as members. Within a year, membership had grown to 1,000; within ten years, 10,000; and by 1988, 22,000. Such rapid growth is a testament to the dedication that Falwell brought to the new endeavor. In those early years, he would often work up to thirteen hours a day, traveling door to door, explaining that he had just started a new church and they were welcome to join him for the Sunday evening service. It was his greatest talent, connecting with people on a personal level, and the one that would eventually make him both extremely powerful and potentially dangerous.

The 1960s brought about another transformation in Jerry Falwell, resulting in a man more along the lines of the one that became alternately loved and hated two decades later. The first catalyst for this change was the 1963 Supreme Court ruling outlawing prayer in public schools. It was not enough, however, for him to make a conscious decision to get involved in the political world, as evidenced by the 1965 “Ministers and Marchers” sermon. A more pronounced shift would come ten years later, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion through the Roe v. Wade decision. By this point, Falwell was older, wiser, and even more aware of the world around him. He had seen a moral decline in America, characterized by such disparate entities as the kids at Woodstock and the gays at Stonewall. He had seen the sexual revolution, the women’s liberation movement, and the gay liberation movement. In the end, he had seen enough, finally reaching the conclusion that the old standby that had drawn him to pastoral duty, straight up “soul winning,” was no longer sufficient. Something had to be done to save the American people from the immorality that was slowly suffocating their society. Therefore, with the formation of the Moral Majority in 1979, Jerry Falwell altered his methods and compromised his ideology. By the time he spoke at the “I Love America” rally in Cincinnati in 1983, he was firmly entrenched in the world of political religion, regardless of what his Moral Majority mission statement said to the contrary.

Defining Fundamentalism

The conflict between Falwell and the homosexual community did not originate in 1983; rather, it was the combined result of the arrival of AIDS on the social radar and his own deep-rooted fundamental beliefs.

Although there are many ways in which fundamentalism can be defined, two are exceptionally pertinent here. The first comes from Scott Appleby and Marty Martin, who write that fundamentalists are those who enjoy the technological and scientific advances that have been made in the last century, but neither like nor accept the values that have accompanied those changes. Falwell views the gay liberation movement, with began with the aforementioned incident at Stonewall Bar in 1969, as a move backwards in the moral growth of America. He rejects this particular “value” that is an undeniable part of our modern society, while still flying thousands of miles a week and reaching out to followers through his television ministry. As Susan Harding writes, “Jerry Falwell had long applied worldly means to soul-winning ends.” He accepted these worldly means while eschewing modern values, and is, according to the definition used by Appleby/Martin, a fundamentalist.

A second definition used by Appleby and Martin refers to the individual relationship between the Bible and those who believe in it. They write: “On their own terms, American fundamentalists are religious idealists, convinced that their purposes are the purposes of God. They rely on authoritative sacred texts: the Bible says. I believe it. That settles it.” Given the evangelical nature of fundamentalists, this unerring belief becomes very important, because they are spreading their ideas and their interpretations to large numbers of people who consequently believe wholly in what they are saying. They represent themselves more as intermediaries than translators; the meaning of the Word is passing from God through them. What made Falwell different from other 1980s preachers is that he was not expressively evangelical. He did not get up at the pulpit like a Jimmy Swaggart or Jim Bakker and preach to the masses. That was not his strong point. What he could do better than anyone else, however, was represent and explain the close relationship between God and man in a way that ordinary, “unenlightened” people were able to understand, while displaying that unerring belief in the absolute truth of the Bible.

Perceptions on Homosexuality

For years, Falwell has held fast to the belief that the Bible outlaws homosexuality as a sinful activity, spreading his ideas to both believers and unbelievers through sermons and interviews. The use of these outlets did not begin in 1983; his reliance on the Bible as the infallible Word of God likely goes back as far as his conversion experience in 1952, and it is a possibility that homosexuality would have been touched upon in some way as early as 1969, when the gay liberation movement began. The onset and growth of the AIDS epidemic, however, was an event that he saw as a legitimization of these viewpoints, and therefore an opportunity to present them to mainstream America.
Before the question of the origins of Jerry Falwell’s “gay plague” comment can finally be answered, a final piece of the puzzle must be fit into place. We have already discussed the general feeling of uncertainty surrounding the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the highlights of Jerry Falwell’s life between his 1952 conversion and the 1989 breakup of the Moral Majority. The only major area that now remains to be addressed is the way that Falwell perceived the homosexual community. It is no great leap of faith to say that he disapproved deeply of such a lifestyle, because he himself freely admits as much. The real question, then, centers on the origin for this viewpoint: how does Falwell justify his belief that homosexuality is a sin?

In explaining his stance on homosexual behavior, Jerry Falwell likes to quote from the Bible. Although his ideas are often rooted in the New Testament, he does make extensive use of two Old Testament stories to make his point. The first goes back to the very beginning of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. According to Falwell, the story of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden is a sufficient rationalization for homosexual behavior: “Because we have a fallen nature, we are capable of doing anything.” This statement, of course, is broad, and not intended as the entire theological foundation for a case against homosexuality, although he seems to view it as a good starting block for any further discussion on the topic. The biblical condemnation of homosexuality begins to be nailed down as Falwell provides another source that helps prove his point. Genesis 19:1-28 tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. At the beginning of the chapter, two angels arrive in Sodom. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, insists on giving them food and shelter. As they are lying down to sleep, the men of the town encircle the house, demanding that the strangers be let out so they may “know” them (the word “know” is used in the King James Version; the more recent New International Version translates this line as “bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”). The encounter proves to the angels, who are representatives of God, that Sodom is beyond redemption and must be destroyed. Only Lot and his two daughters escape the city’s fiery end. Falwell looks at this story and sees the issue in black and white: the men of Sodom practice homosexuality. God orders the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore, the story shows that God is clearly against homosexual behavior.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah illustrates the misunderstanding that exists between Falwell and homosexuals. In a panel discussion with the Heritage Foundation in 1984, Falwell said, “As long as the homosexual is not…recruiting students…” Coupled with his interpretation of Genesis as a portrayal of homosexual gang rapists, this presents a very clear picture of the way he understands the gay community. In his view, homosexuals are all the same: brutish beasts who prey on unsuspecting, innocent people, turning them on to a sinful lifestyle.

Homosexuals are also sex fiends, according to Falwell’s view of the world, an idea that was undoubtedly influenced by the San Francisco and New York bathhouses that he suggested should be closed in the 1980s. This viewpoint is brought across clearly when Falwell discusses Mel White, a friend and ghostwriter who came out as a homosexual after many years of marriage. He says that when White left his family behind to move in with a gay lover, he was implicitly saying, “My sexual gratification is more important than those children, that woman…As long as I feel good and have my sexual gratification so be it.” While it is true that the early years of the gay liberation movement were based largely on sexual activity (New Yorker Michael Callen once said, “The belief that was handed to me was that sex was liberating and more sex was more liberating.”), it is equally true that the AIDS epidemic drove a large part of the homosexual community into a type of fearful monogamy or abstinence. By the mid-1980s, the bathhouses were all but closed due to lack of business, as gay men settled down into a more “normal” lifestyle. Falwell, however, does not even suggest that a homosexual relationship could be about something more than meaningless wanton sex. In a sense, it is not a surprising position on the issue, considering the way biblical texts such as Genesis 19:1-28 characterize those who practice the homosexual lifestyle.

Unholy Inheritance?

Falwell’s characterization of the homosexual community as a group of people living a life of sin ties directly into his most controversial viewpoints on the subject:
I do not believe that homosexuality is inherited…I believe it is learned… Sinful lifestyles are a matter of choice… it is a learned lifestyle, and can be unlearned.
This belief puts Falwell into a direct contest with medical science. Initially, the theory appears relatively sound. He comes across as knowledgeable and confident while presenting his ideas, indicating that he fully believes what he is saying. Upon further research, however, it becomes evident that Falwell ignores one vital detail: according to the American Psychology Association (APA), sexual orientation is not “a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.” They go on to say that, “sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive, and biological factors…there is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person’s sexuality.” Although this is still a hotly debated topic, the current research points to a variety of determinants for sexual orientation, as opposed to the Falwell belief that it is a learned behavior. In fairness to his point of view, however, the APA does recognize a choice that exists: the decision to “act on our feelings.”

Also of note is Falwell’s ominous sounding paragraph closer, “It is a learned lifestyle, and can be unlearned.” Once again, the APA in no way backs up his unsubstantiated belief. Their position regarding the use of therapy as a means of changing sexual orientation is quite clear: “The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable.” Without a doubt, Jerry Falwell would disagree with this assessment, on the grounds that he has witnessed the spiritual rebirth of many “ex-gays” who turned their backs on the homosexual lifestyle and began new lives in Christ. The APA, however, presents another side to the issue. While they acknowledge that so-called “conversion therapy” has been superficially effective in “recovering” homosexuals from what is perceived as a sinful and perverted lifestyle, their research digs deeper and exposes what Falwell conveniently leaves out: “…many of the claims come from organizations with an ideological perspective which condemns homosexuality. Furthermore, their claims are poorly documented. For example, treatment outcome is not followed and reported over time as would be the standard to test the validity of any mental health intervention.” In other words, although the conversion therapy initially appears successful to Falwell, in medical practice it has a number of flaws.

Proper Treatment of Homosexuals

Falwell has very distinct views on how homosexuals are and should be treated by society: The problem with homosexuality is that most people look on this sin in a different way than all other sins. Most Americans look with great contempt on the homosexual. That is why we cannot help homosexuals. They immediately perceive this contempt and realize there is no love or reaching out there (Sex and God 13-14).In recent interviews, Falwell has been shown to subscribe to a “love the sinner but hate the sin” mentality when dealing with homosexual behavior. This is obviously a viewpoint that has developed since 1984, as there is no mention of such a concept, either by name or by description, in the passage above. On the contrary, he closes the thought by stating that there will be no outreach to this specific group. Such a volatile viewpoint obviously did not last; at a 1999 meeting between 200 homosexuals and 200 Christians, Falwell admitted wrongdoing, saying, “While the evangelical church has been very responsive in condemning drug addiction and alcoholism and simultaneously reaching out, we have condemned homosexuality without building a bridge.” In shifting to this “love the sinner, hate the sin,” doctrine and trying to at least offer help and advice to homosexuals, Falwell has moved to a more Christian approach to the problem, rather than the early dismissals of any possible help.

Final Thoughts: Falwell vs. Homosexuals

Jerry Falwell’s interaction with the homosexual community has been characterized by a severe lack of understanding and the refusal to accept medical information as fact. He has steadfastly stood by his viewpoint that homosexuality is learned, a lifestyle choice that may be unlearned and unchosen, without taking into account the evidence from organizations such as the APA that claim otherwise. At these times, he blatantly misrepresents the truth, choosing instead to further his own religious ideals. One issue that comes into play is shown in a question that was posed to him during a PBS interview. When asked, “You base the belief that this [homosexuality] is a violation of God’s law on the Bible. Is it possible that you could be mistaken,” Falwell responded, “Only if God’s mistaken.” He does not allow any possibility for an incorrect interpretation on his part, perhaps forgetting that he once used portions of Genesis to justify segregation and the inferiority of African-Americans, a belief that he later blamed on his Bible college teachers. He cannot be wrong, because his message is coming directly from God. If anyone is wrong, therefore, it must be God, and since that cannot happen, the Bible must be correct.

Conclusion

This paper began as a study of Baptist minister Jerry Falwell’s early response to the AIDS epidemic, with a direct focus on his usage of the term “gay plague” during a 1983 rally in Cincinnati. Along the way, it has become evident that Falwell did not have any major concerns regarding the AIDS virus itself, but rather the people who were inadvertently spreading it throughout not only the United States, but also the rest of the world. Equally evident was the fact that because he did not particularly like or understand the lifestyle of the social group that he deemed to be responsible for the growing epidemic, he placed the blame directly on them, without equivocation or hesitation. The homosexual community was not at fault for the advent of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Yes, promiscuous sexual behavior was a major factor in the spread of the disease within the country. Yes, many gay men totally redefined the word promiscuity in the 1970s. But to blame this group alone for such a dreadful scourge is, as one picketer of Falwell’s Cincinnati rally put it, “like blaming polio on kids because they were affected by it.”

In focusing the blame for AIDS squarely on the homosexual community, Falwell made perhaps his worst miscue ever, allowing his dislike for a particular group of people to cloud his judgment. The error in his rhetoric is clear: even assuming that AIDS could have ever been characterized as a gay disease, by 1983 it was an illness that could (and did) affect everyone. Drug users, hemophiliacs, Haitian immigrants, infants—more and more groups were developing links to the deadly virus. To truly identify such a shift, we need only look as far as the naming issue that took place in July of 1982. If AIDS were still strictly a “gay plague,” then the medical community would never have approved of a change to a sexually neutral name. We would be reading about new treatments for GRID in the daily paper, or the latest statistics on ACIDS deaths. For Falwell to characterize AIDS as a gay disease in 1983, therefore, was totally wrong, and the action that ultimately drew the well-deserved ire of the homosexual community.

One thing that must be noted is that Jerry Falwell’s use of the term “gay plague” was not unprecedented, a fact that might have led him to feel more comfortable using it as a description of the growing epidemic. Between June 26, 1982 and June 17, 1983, the phrase was employed no less than thirteen times in such leading publications and news services as the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and United Press International (UPI). One of the quotes in the Times was from a Moral Majority member, another from a gay man. The most common use was as an initial reference to the epidemic, a reminder of how people had initially characterized the disease. From this starting point, the reporter generally moved on to the fact that a significant (and growing) percentage of heterosexuals had been infected as well. In short, most of the “gay plague” usages were inoffensive and mild, as opposed to Falwell’s scalding assessment of the epidemic.

In a sense, Jerry Falwell is an admirable man. He stands firm on principles, refusing to bend in the face of intense pressure from those who do not share the same moral values that he does. In another sense, however, this is his greatest weakness. According to the most recent medical information, homosexuality is not a choice that humans can make. He refuses to accept this as fact. Homosexuals are not wild beasts concerned only with their own sexual gratification. He refuses to accept this as fact. Over the years, his hold on these beliefs has caused him to lose friends, make enemies, and attempt to rewrite history. This inflexibility is the problem at the heart of Jerry Falwell’s response to the AIDS epidemic. The real conflict is not between Falwell and AIDS, or even Falwell and homosexuals, but Falwell and himself. His beliefs are important to him, and that is a trait worthy of admiration. But they also create a rift between him and a large part of society, and that is a shame.

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