An End to the Hatred

The Rev. Jerry Falwell stuffs a leather-bound "giant-print" Bible under an arm so he can pop a Rolaids into his mouth. He eats fatty food too often at the Backyard Grill in Lynchburg, Va., and he turned 66 last summer, but friends say he hasn't let up on his schedule. This morning he's speaking to 1,500 cheering students at Liberty University, the college he founded in 1971 that has become the largest evangelical college in the world. "Jesus is awesome!" they shout, many faces contorted with joy.

Christian rock blares. Eventually, Falwell takes the podium, as he has countless times in his 47 years of preaching. But when he speaks, the words sound a bit strange.

"We can have friendship with homosexuals," he says. "You need to learn that. We can have friendship with people we disagree with." Many of the kids have grown up in conservative homes where gays are rarely spoken of, especially not in exhortations to friendship, and now they sit stone-faced, motionless. Falwell laments the murders of Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming student, and Billy Jack Gaither, the gay man clubbed to death and burned in Alabama. Falwell makes clear that, to him, homosexuality is still a sin. But he says Christians must be more vigilant about observing both halves of "that cliche," as he calls it: "Love the sinner but hate the sin."

Is Jerry Falwell mellowing with age? Sort of. The edge has dropped from his voice a bit. The Christian conservative movement he helped start 20 years ago became a political and financial giant, but Falwell believes it also has sometimes gone too far in its rhetoric. "If we are to have a real Christian witness to millions of gay and lesbian people," he says--abandoning such terms as "homosexual deviants"--"we have to use our language carefully."

For many years, but especially during the 1990s, as gays have won more power, Falwell has used language harshly to frighten millions of dollars from donors. Last weekend Falwell apologized for such statements. The occasion for Falwell's soul searching was an unprecedented meeting between 200 of Falwell's supporters and 200 gay people of faith. Falwell agreed to break bread with them after several talks with the Rev. Mel White, a 60-year-old gay activist who runs Soulforce, an ecumenical gay group. White and Falwell used to be pals; White, a former filmmaker and writer for conservative causes, ghostwrote Falwell's autobiography. But they lost touch after December 1991, when White, tired of fighting his true nature and incensed by one of Falwell's fund-raising pitches, came out to Falwell. Within two years, White was working full time for gay causes, blasting Falwell and other conservatives.