Two Interesting Tributes To Jerry Falwell

Today's Los Angeles Times publishes an unusual tribute to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. It is from Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt who won a Supreme Court victory over Falwell in 1988. In Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, (Sup. Ct., 1988), the Court rejected Falwell's attempt to collect damages from Flynt for libel and infliction of emotional distress caused by a parody advertisement depicting Falwell in a drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. Subsequently they became friends and went around the country debating morals and the First Amendment on college campuses. Flynt's tribute reads in part:

[T]he reverend and I had a lot in common. He was from Virginia, and I was from Kentucky. His father had been a bootlegger, and I had been one too in my 20s before I went into the Navy. We steered our conversations away from politics, but religion was within bounds. He wanted to save me and was determined to get me out of "the business."

My mother always told me that no matter how repugnant you find a person, when you meet them face to face you will always find something about them to like. The more I got to know Falwell, the more I began to see that his public portrayals were caricatures of himself. There was a dichotomy between the real Falwell and the one he showed the public.

He was definitely selling brimstone religion and would do anything to add another member to his mailing list. But in the end, I knew what he was selling, and he knew what I was selling, and we found a way to communicate.

A less surprising tribute came from former House speaker Newt Gingrich, appearing Saturday as commencement speaker at Falwell's Liberty University. (Washington Post). Gingrich told reporters: "Anybody on the left who hopes that when people like Reverend Falwell disappear, that the opportunity to convert all of America has gone with him fundamentally misunderstands why institutions like this were created."

UPDATE: Here is a transcript of Gingrich's commencement remarks.