In the Castro, May 15 was anything but a day to mourn.

News that right-wing Christian minister Jerry Falwell had died that morning brought about 30 queers to the corner of 18th and Castro during rush hour to attend an “anti-memorial” that was full of good cheer. Representatives of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of gay male nuns that Falwell had once attacked, were on hand to help exorcise the spirit of the hate-spewing fundamentalist preacher.

On queervision, an internet discussion group, message lines in emails hailed “ding-dong the witch is dead” and “Falwell is dead day.” Entries on the SF Bay Guardian blog, too, expressed no regret about the 73-year-old bigot’s sudden passing in his office at Liberty University in Virginia.

Some may think it’s tasteless to speak ill of the dead, but certainly not in the case of Jerry Falwell. The man made a lucrative career out of bashing the LGBT community and fighting any gains that women made, such as Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in America. He was also a segregationist who once denounced South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a foe of apartheid, as a phony and not a proper representative of Blacks.

In 1965, Falwell criticized the work of Dr. Martin Luther King and dubbed the civil rights struggle the “civil wrongs movement.” He regularly featured racists such as former Alabama Governor George Wallace on his “Old-Time Gospel Hour” TV Program. His voter registration drive among Christian fundamentalists in the late 70s is credited as having given Ronald Reagan his presidential victory in 1980.

While riding high on that newfound political influence, Falwell suffered a couple of rather humiliating defeats, one at the hands of Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, after the publication ran a spoof of Falwell’s “first time,” a supposedly incestuous relationship with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which surprisingly backed Flynt’s right to parody the public figure. It was a great victory for free speech.

In 1984, a self-proclaimed gay pagan, Jerry Sloan, sued Falwell after he slammed the gay Metropolitan Community Church during a TV debate. Sloan accused Falwell of characterizing MCC as “brute beasts” and “a vile and satanic system.” Falwell denied that he said those things and told Sloan he’d pay him $5,000 if he produced proof. Sloan produced a tape. Falwell refused to pay, so Sloan sued and won.

Falwell eventually backed down from his stand on segregation, but never relented on his attacks on homosexuality. He not only described gay sexuality as “Satan’s diabolical attack upon the family,” but also believed that AIDS was God’s way of punishing queers, as well as “God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

In 1999, Falwell caused a huge stir by outing Tinky-Winky, a BBC children’s show character who wore purple and had an inverted triangle on his head. He also carried a magic bag. Producers denied that Tinky-Winky was queer and said that there was nothing wrong with a man carrying a purse.

Perhaps one of Falwell’s most tasteless quips was after 9/11: He blamed the attack on the Twin Towers on “the pagans and the feminists and the gays.” He was later forced to apologize.

Falwell’s is a legacy that leaves nothing to be proud of.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical, southern Italian, working-class, atheist queer performer and writer whose work can be seen atwww.avicollimecca.com.