Looking Back on the Day I Won Over Jerry Falwell

By Jerry Sloan, AlterNet. Posted July 14, 2009.

After the KCRA interview, I went to see Rosemary Metrailer, an attorney I knew, who happened to be a lesbian and asked her to write Falwell to send the $5,000 by return mail because he could find his statement on his Old Time Gospel Hour tape No. 592.

Falwell's attorney wrote us a letter basically saying it would be a cold day in you-know-where before he gave me $5,000.

On Nov. 30, 1984, Falwell was scheduled to be in Sacramento on a fundraising tour, so Rosie drew up papers to sue Falwell for "breach of an oral contract" and filed  the papers in the municipal court a couple of hours before the estimated time of arrival of his private jet in Sacramento.

All of the local visual and print media were there to cover his arrival and appearance at the Sacramento Convention Center. Much of the media were curious as to why Rosie and I were there. As the plane touched down, they were handed a press release stating we were about to serve Falwell with papers for a lawsuit.

My friend Doug Mitten served the papers on Falwell, who directed him to give them to an assistant.

The news of the lawsuit made national headlines, and news of the suit popped up over the next 26 months as it made its snail's-pace progress through the courts.

The case took so long because after the municipal court judge ruled in my favor, Falwell appealed the ruling to the Sacramento Appeals Court on the grounds that the judge who heard the case was Jewish and had "a natural prejudice" against him.

In July 1986, when the case was heard before three appeals court judges, I was taken aback by the judges' harsh attitude toward Falwell's attorney, Weldon Reeves, and at the same time their light manner about the whole case.

The judges, of course, ruled in my favor and awarded me an additional $2,875 plus interest as a sanction against Falwell for wasting the court's time with a "frivolous" lawsuit. It still took until September before Falwell paid up, and I received a check for $8,982.90 from the Moral Majority.

He wanted to impose an agreement on my part that I would not call a press conference and "gloat" about winning the lawsuit.

While he had no right to make such a demand, as he had been ordered by two courts and four judges to pay me, I was tired and I told Rosie to let him put anything on the back of the check he wished. I told her, "My mother will call a press conference and say, 'Hey, look what my kid has done!' "

The winning of this case had national implications for the GLBT communities across the country, because the infamous Hardwick v. Bowers case had been ruled on that year by the nine [U.S.] Supremes, and they upheld sodomy laws, which meant government at all levels could still interfere with the private sex lives of citizens. It gave us a little sunshine that a major homo-hater and soul molester had to pay for his venom.

I had people tell me they had heard about the lawsuit in news broadcasts as they were traveling in Europe and Australia.

After I cashed the check, I took a portion of the money and gave it to the Lambda Community Center, which opened in August 1986, and we used the money to buy some much-needed equipment.

Falwell did not tame down in the last 20 years of his life. If anything, he became more volatile in his opposition to civil rights for us GLBT folks.

He jumped full force into the "gay marriage" issue and firmly supported an amendment to the Constitution that would allow marriage only between a man and a woman to be recognized in the United States.

I am happy to be, as far as I know, the only person to have proved Jerry Falwell a liar in two courts and before four judges.

When I recall this story, it always brings back a flood of good memories. The Lambda Community Center is still on 20th and L streets, serving the needs of Sacramento GLBT communities. It now has a vision to move and expand to meet the growing demand for its services. In the last 19 years, countless men, women and young people have availed themselves of it services and left feeling better about themselves.

Out of the center's programs has grown the Lambda Players, which bring GLBT culture and much joy to our community. The center helped the Sacramento Men's chorus get off the ground and become an outstanding cultural anchor for us.

Without Jerry Falwell, the Lambda Community Center and all of these other fantastic benefits would have never become a reality.

Anniversaries do bring warm memories.

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This post originally appeared on Talk To Action. Jerry Sloan has been a gay-rights activist for over 40 years and is originally from Kansas City, Mo. He is the co-founder of the Lambda Freedom Fair, Lambda Community Center and Project Tocsin. He has tracked the political money trail of the radical Religious Right since 1980. He is the co-author of Without Justice for All: A Look At the Christian Right in California and Beyond (1994).

Visit Project Tocsin or his blog.

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