Big Bad Jerry

More than a year ago, when I began privately voicing my concerns about the direction of America’s cultural left, many of my friends and colleagues were quick to nod agreement. But when I said I planned to write a newspaper piece, I was surprised by the intensity of their opposition. I kept getting the same response: "Your case is strong about where the left has gone wrong, but you dare not go public because you’ll only give aid and comfort to right-wing extremists like Jerry Falwell." That got me wondering. If Falwell is an extremist, what does that make Al Qaeda? Bin Laden and his henchmen stone women for adultery and beat them for showing an ankle; they throw homosexuals to their deaths from the tops of towers; they murder thousands of civilians by flying airplanes into skyscrapers. A sedentary Baptist minister from Lynchburg, Virginia, is somehow a greater threat? I don’t think so.