An End to the Hatred

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Now they are friends again. They have bonded over mutual horror at the high-profile violence of the past year, beginning with the Shepard murder and culminating in September, when seven Christian young people were murdered at a Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas. "Columbine, Paducah, the Gaithers, the Shepards, we don't like any of that," Falwell told TIME. It sounds a little odd to compare school shootings in Colorado and Kentucky with anti-gay slayings, but over the past few years, evangelical Christians have begun to see themselves as victims, just as many gays do. Conservative Christians have lost political battles on issues like school prayer, and now many feel they are threatened physically. Falwell kept an armed plainclothes guard nearby last weekend. "We watch our steps," he says.

To be sure, Falwell has changed more in style than substance. "Compassion" is in vogue among conservatives, but it sometimes doesn't mean much. On Saturday, Falwell called for "compassionate conviction," a sort of religious counterpart to Republican candidate George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism." But Falwell and Bush both believe employers should be able to fire people just for being gay. Neither wants gays to be able to marry or adopt children. And Falwell, at least, believes sincerely that gays can change into straights. Indeed, he hopes his softer words will allow that message to meet less resistance in the gay community. Other religious conservatives, like Robert Knight of the Family Research Council, said last week they won't even meet publicly with people like White. A few dozen picketed the Falwell summit.

But Falwell has made an important break, one he compares in historical importance with his baptizing blacks in the early 1960s (which many whites in his church opposed) and his founding of the Moral Majority in 1979. "Homosexuals are the last pariahs in this society," he says. "We've got to reach out."