# Jerry Falwell — "you helped this happen" > [!quote] "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" > — Jerry Falwell, The 700 Club (Christian Broadcasting Network), September 13, 2001 ## Context Said two days after the September 11 attacks, as a guest on Pat Robertson's *The 700 Club*, with Robertson agreeing on air. The remarks drew immediate bipartisan condemnation, including from the Bush White House, and Falwell issued a partial apology within days. ## Why this matters The textbook case of religious-right scapegoating: recasting a national-security catastrophe as divine punishment for domestic secularism, feminism, and LGBTQ rights. It is a canonical receipt for the [[Christian Nationalism]] habit of reading political and cultural enemies into providential disaster — a rhetorical move that recurs after hurricanes, mass shootings, and pandemics. The on-air Robertson agreement ties the two leading [[Moral Majority]]-era broadcasters to the same theology of blame. ## Verification - **Transcript + provenance:** [Jerry Falwell — Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell); [Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/falwell-and-above/). - **Status:** Verbatim from broadcast transcript. Undisputed; later partially apologized for by Falwell. ## Related quotes - [[Pat Robertson - the feminist agenda]] — the same broadcaster and the same enemies-list theology, from the host's chair nine years earlier. - Featured in [[Christian Nationalism in Government]] — the movement-to-governance pattern collection. - Featured in [[Misogyny on the Right]] — the misogyny/antifeminism pattern collection. - Featured in [[Politics as Holy War]] — the Manichaean-politics pattern collection.