Falwell Is Condemned for His Comments Following Attacks

The reverend has retreated--but reverberations still rumble in West Hollywood over an assertion that gays and civil liberties groups are partly to blame for last week’s terrorists attacks.

Television evangelist Jerry Falwell suggested last Thursday that homosexuals, feminists, abortion-rights groups and others bear partial responsibility because their actions have turned God’s anger against the United States.

This week he apologized for singling out certain groups and for making divisive comments.

But that’s not good enough, representatives of a dozen groups complained Wednesday in the heavily gay community’s City Hall.

“I’m a forgiving person, but I don’t forget,” said Gwenn Baldwin, director of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. “We shiver when we hear words like his.”

Falwell said on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” show on the Christian Broadcasting Network that God’s anger over how secularized America has become allowed the attacks.

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen,’ ” Falwell said.

He backed down after the comments caused a public uproar and prompted a White House spokesman to stress that “The president does not share those views.”

“This was insensitive, uncalled for at the time and unnecessary as part of the commentary on this destruction,” Falwell said in a statement issued Monday. “I apologize that . . . I singled out for blame certain groups of Americans.”

But the damage has already been done, Katherine Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority organization, told reporters. “We fear what he has said emboldens religious extremists in the United States,” she said. “It wasn’t much of an apology. As he offered it, he reiterated what he meant to say.”

Nancy Sasaki, president of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, accused Falwell of “inciting violence and fomenting hatred.”

The Rev. Dan Smith of the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church dismissed Falwell’s remarks as “an outrageous affront to religion.”

“The last thing we need is anybody fanning the flames of hatred in a time of national crisis,” agreed Marshall Wong, a staff member of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission.

Added Martha Matthews of the American Civil Liberties Union: “Just by saying that, Jerry Falwell has firmly established himself in the lunatic fringe of America.”

West Hollywood City Councilman Steve Martin said he will introduce a resolution condemning Falwell at Monday’s council meeting.

The proposed resolution notes that “an openly gay man,” Mark Bingham, was one of the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 who apparently thwarted its hijackers’ plan to crash the plane into a target in Washington.