One more on Falwell

Ann Coulter talks about the collective amnesia of the media:

Beginning in early 1998, the news was bristling with stories about a children's cartoon PBS was importing from Britain that featured a gay cartoon character, Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbie with a male voice and a red handbag.

People magazine gleefully reported that Teletubbies was "aimed at Telebabies as young as 1 year. But teenage club kids love the products' kitsch value, and gay men have made the purse-toting Tinky Winky a camp icon."

In the Nexis archives for 1998 alone, there are dozens and dozens of mentions of Tinky Winky being gay – in periodicals such as Newsweek, the Toronto Star, the Washington Post (twice!), the New York Times and Time magazine (also twice).

In its Jan. 8, 1999, issue, USA Today accused the Washington Post of "outing" Tinky Winky, with a "recent Washington Post In/Out list putting T.W. opposite Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, essentially 'outing' the kids' show character."

Michael Musto of the Village Voice boasted that Tinky Winky was "out and proud," noting that it was "a great message to kids – not only that it's OK to be gay, but the importance of being well accessorized."

All this appeared before Falwell made his first mention of Tinky Winky.

After one year of the mainstream media laughing at having put one over on stupid bourgeois Americans by promoting a gay cartoon character in a TV show for children, when Falwell criticized the cartoon in February 1999, that same mainstream media howled with derision that Falwell thought a cartoon character could be gay.

Teletubbies producers immediately denounced the suggestion that Tinky Winky was gay – though they admitted that he was once briefly engaged to Liza Minnelli. That's what you get, reverend, for believing what you read in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and Newsweek. Of course, Falwell also thought the show "Queer as Folk" was gay, so obviously the man had no credibility.

Preach it, Ann!

Incidentally, occasional commenter Chalice Chick came by and left some links to some venom-free remembrances of Falwell on the left. I especially like this one from Socinian. Gracious people like that balance out the Amandas and Koses.