Supreme Court turns down Rev. Falwell's appeal request!

The case is over and this website may stay online.

by Christopher Lamparello

 

I started this website in 1999. It was done with the best motives in mind, which were to challenge Reverend Falwell's preachings and teachings as they regard people who are gay or lesbian. In particular, I sought to directly challenge his belief that homosexuality is a sin.

Being gay is not a sin, and it is not something that a person can "repent" from. It is not something that can be changed, despite claims that some make to the contrary.

In an attempt to take this website for himself, Reverend Falwell filed suit against me in a Virginia district court about three years ago. The local court decided in his favor. I strongly disagreed with that decision. Therefore, I took my case to a higher court; the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. On Thursday, May 26, 2005, both my attorney, Paul Levy of the Public Citizen Litigation Group and Jerry Falwell's attorney presented their oral arguments before a panel of three justices.

In a unanimous, 3-0 decision, the Fourth Circuit reversed the decision of the lower court. The court decisively ruled that this site did not violate trademark law, as Rev. Falwell had asserted. Jerry then petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States and requested that they hear his appeal of that ruling. On April 17, 2006, the court denied his request. This case is over, and this site may stay!

 

The purpose of this website

Many otherwise well-meaning people have accepted the untruth that gay people are commiting a sin. Jerry Falwell has been one of America's leading promoters of this mistaken idea. This notion has created profound suffering and torment, not only for gay people, but for their friends and families as well. It has also dealt a devastating blow to Christianity itself, as fair-minded people have turned away in response.

I know this because I have received hundreds of emails from heterosexuals who have left Christianity directly due to its embrace of homophobia and anti-gay prejudice. Peace, love and meekness have been replaced by a gospel of intolerance, ignorance and political ambition.

To be frank with you, the idea that being gay is a sin and is something that a person can pray away is simply ridiculous. In the year 2006, we should no longer be afraid to reject these antiquated notions about sexual orientation. The truth must be permitted to illuminate one's faith.

 

Can gay people change?

There have been a very small number of gay people who have claimed that they have changed and become heterosexual through prayer. These stories have consistently been disproven. Perhaps the most well-known is that of John Paulk, a gay man who, in 1998, appeared on the cover of Newsweek Magazine, with his wife, to claim that he was no longer gay. In September of 2000, however, he was photographed in a gay bar.

Jerry Falwell himself once employed an ex-gay spokesperson named Michael Johnston. Johnston regularly preached at Rev. Falwell's church. He too claimed that he had changed his sexual orientation and was no longer gay. But a scandal unfolded in which Johnston was found to be and eventually admitted to having sexual affairs with other men. The man that Rev. Falwell was holding up as "proof" that gays can change turned out to have never changed at all.

The only people who claim that sexual orientation can be changed are those who have a religious motive to believe the claims. They are not impartial sources, because they are people who actively want the claim to be true. They harbor a strange compulsion to change gay people and are seemingly unable to live in harmony with the knowledge that gay people exist in our world.

Not a single mainstream psychological, psychiatric or medical organization believes that changing one's sexual orientation is possible. Just as there are "Holocaust Denialists" who oddly deny that the Holocaust ever happened, there is a network and cottage industry of so-called "ex-gays" who deny the experience of tens of millions of gays and lesbians, which is that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic.

We live in a world in which we must warn our children about the existence of "sexual predators" (child molesters). Nonetheless, it's not the habits of those people who religious fundamentalists so compulsively seek to change. Strangely, it's those of gay and lesbian people.

We have been down this road before. In decades past, gay men married women in an effort to become heterosexual. Sadly, the marriages always fell apart before the men realized that they were still gay and that living a dishonest life was neither moral nor right. The wives of such men went through incredible pain and emotional trauma as a result of these marriages. There is an old saying which says, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". To repeat that history of shame and ignorance would be a travesty indeed.

 

Rev. Falwell's motivation

Jerry Falwell works hard to maintain society's stigma against gay and lesbian people. You've probably heard the phrase, "stigmatized minority." In this case, gays and lesbians are the minority and Jerry Falwell is the stigmatizer. People like Reverend Falwell seek to promote and maintain a level of societal prejudice against a particular group of fellow human beings.

That stigmatization hurts a lot of people who are gay or lesbian, and their families, too. It is sad that a misguided minister could single handedly cause so many human beings such grief, but this man and people like him have been attacking, belittling and fighting against the equal rights of gay people for decades.

When it comes to fundamentalists, never in my life have I seen a group of people who so loudly claim to have the truth, while being so completely devoid of it.

In contrast, Jesus reached out to those on the margins of society. The only people that Jesus ever condemned were religious fundamentalists. (See Matthew 23). Jesus also said that the two greatest commandments were those that commanded us to love (Mark 12:28-34). Fundamentalists have fallen remarkably short in the fulfillment of that task. It has been my privilege to counter their untruths, and it is an endeavor that I will continue.

To all of those who have supported me during the struggle to share these truths, I thank you. I could not have done it without you, your encouragement, and your warmth.

(c) 2006 Christopher Lamparello