Falwell Says Gay Marchers Made Him Fear for Life

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was met by a chanting and whistling crowd of nearly 2,000 gay rights protesters during a recent visit to Los Angeles, feared for his life while police ushered him to safety through the rear exit of his hotel, the evangelist said Wednesday.

“They were shouting in unison, ‘We want Falwell! We want Falwell!’ ” the Virginia-based preacher recalled in a telephone interview. “Everyone in the hotel was frightened. I think they intended to do me harm.”

Falwell, whose conservative ministry staunchly opposes gay rights, was staying at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel when the confrontation occurred a few days after Gov. Pete Wilson’s Sept. 29 veto of a gay job rights bill. Falwell, who had appeared on Los Angeles television praising the veto, described that night’s protest in a newsletter soliciting donations.

“It is truly a miracle I am alive today,” Falwell wrote, telling supporters that “our nation has become a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Demonstrators, who were parading through Hollywood to protest Wilson’s veto, massed in front of the hotel after learning that Falwell was there, gay rights activists said. But they denied that any attempt was made to harm the evangelist.

“No one attempted to do anything to Jerry Falwell except make it difficult for him to sleep,” said Carol Anderson, co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation USA. “There was no thought of doing any physical violence.”

“It was more in fun,” said Cory Roberts of Queer Nation, a protest group that joined Act Up LA and other organizations in the march. “Everyone was chanting, ‘We’re here, we’re queer and we’re here to visit Jerry.’ The chant was pretty funny.”

Roberts said about a dozen demonstrators entered the hotel before being met by police. Protesters apparently did not know that Falwell was eating in a dining room adjoining the lobby.

Falwell said he was pushed behind a partition by his son, Jonathan, while police were summoned. A waiter, meanwhile, prayed to God for Falwell’s safety, he said.

Eventually, Falwell said, a line of policemen protected him while he made his way to an elevator to return to his room. He packed immediately, he said, and left the hotel via a service elevator.

He flew home to Virginia the same night, he said.

“I missed my dessert,” he said.