# Billy Graham dies at 99 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 21, 2018, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269 "2018-02-21T14:56:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/41 "2018-02-22T12:13:21Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Of all the clergy I saw on TV Billy Graham was the only one I liked or respected. His sermons were pretty much right from the Bible, and his group didn’t pound you for donations. At the end of his televised crusades the announcer would encourage everyone who was watching, or who had felt moved, to be in church on Sunday. Not a particular flavor of church even. I never heard a breath of sexual scandal either, like some of the others. I once read he made it a point never to be alone with any woman but his wife. I’m sorry he’s gone. Thing is though, he was anti-gay was he not? That is a massive black mark against anyone and I don’t think being religious gives him a free pass. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/42 "2018-02-22T12:31:05Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > The dubious hijack you brought up. Anything other than praise was a hijack? I disagree. I understand you might disagree with my characterization, and that’s fine, but delving in to argue about it would be a hijack. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/43 "2018-02-22T12:33:10Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Thing is though, he was anti-gay was he not? That is a massive black mark against anyone and I don’t think being religious gives him a free pass. Also thought that the women was as a wife, mother and homemaker. He denied having agreed with Nixon’s antisemitic opinions. Then, only when declassified Nixon tapes came out which confirmed his antisemitic statements, said it was a long time ago and didn’t represent his views anymore. He might have had more credibility in saying it didn’t represent his views if he’d said that before tapes provided undeniable evidence of his statements. [Billy Graham - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham#Controversies) He was a smiling, chummy version of Jerry Falwell. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/44 "2018-02-22T16:41:55Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Thing is though, he was anti-gay was he not? That is a massive black mark against anyone and I don’t think being religious gives him a free pass. Not that this totally excuses any of his beliefs, but he was a 99 year old white Southerner. I do wonder what he would have thought on the matter if he was in his right mind in the last decade. It is not a mark in his favor, though, no. OTOH, Westboro Baptist Church is planning on picketing his funeral and is saying that Graham is now in Hell - which is generally my cue for when someone is a decent person. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/45 "2018-02-22T16:54:00Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > Not that this totally excuses any of his beliefs, but he was a 99 year old white Southerner. I do wonder what he would have thought on the matter if he was in his right mind in the last decade. It is not a mark in his favor, though, no. > > OTOH, Westboro Baptist Church is planning on picketing his funeral and is saying that Graham is now in Hell - which is generally my cue for when someone is a decent person. The best you can say about him is that he wasn’t as filled with bile and hate as a lot of other evangelists but then that’s a low bar. And I normally judge people’s decency by what they say and do, particularly in regard to treating everyone equally regardless of gender, sex, race, religion, sexuality etc. etc. You get the picture. If they don’t even come up to my standards then I’d be struggling to consider them “decent”. The WBC are wingnut arseholes, I don’t think you can rely on them to have a consistent approach other than hating pretty much everyone, regardless of character. If Jesus came back today they’d probably denounce him for wearing his hair long and hanging round with a bunch of single young men. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/46 "2018-02-22T17:22:47Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > And I normally judge people’s decency by what they say and do, particularly in regard to treating everyone equally regardless of gender, sex, race, religion, sexuality etc. etc. You get the picture. If they don’t even come up to my standards then I’d be struggling to consider them “decent”. In terms of race, one can say that Billy Graham exceeded the bar by quite a bit, especially in the 1950s. He also got in some hot water by other evangelicals for treating people of other faiths equally (probably why Westboro is protesting him). Probably could have been better on the others. However, other people of his age weren’t paragons of morality on those issues - Martin Luther King, Jr. for example, who was kind and worked closely with Bayard Rustin, but still saw homosexuality as physiological malady ( [What would Martin Luther King Jr think of the LGBT rights movement? | PinkNews](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/01/15/martin-luther-king-lgbt-rights/) ), and King was born 10 years later than Graham (though one hopes Brother Martin would have evolved on his views if he was able to live past 1968) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/47 "2018-02-22T17:51:19Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Thing is though, he was anti-gay was he not? That is a massive black mark against anyone and I don’t think being religious gives him a free pass. [Yes, he was,](https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/billy-graham-leaves-painful-legacy-lgbtq-people-n850031) in a time when that was the norm. That’s still a common view among evangelicals. He didn’t campaign on it, but he did take a leading (though not foremost) role on racial integration. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/48 "2018-02-22T17:51:39Z")
Westboro criteria for protesting a funeral has 100% to do with media coverage and how prominent the deceased is, and 0% to do with who the person was and what they believed. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/49 "2018-02-22T18:32:23Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > How so? Here’s what Hitchens had to say: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hl2jdfIiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hl2jdfIiA) ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/50 "2018-02-22T19:04:47Z")
What makes him worthy of [lying in repose in the US Capitol](https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/politics/billy-graham-lie-honor-capitol/index.html)? He was a private, spiritual advisor to a number of presidents. Did he ever have an ‘official’ govenrnmental title, “Senior Junior Deputy Assistant Advisor to the President” or such? Seems rather thumbing the nose at Jews, Atheists, & others. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/51 "2018-02-22T19:18:11Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > What makes him worthy of [lying in repose in the US Capitol](https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/politics/billy-graham-lie-honor-capitol/index.html)? He was a private, spiritual advisor to a number of presidents. Did he ever have an ‘official’ govenrnmental title, “Senior Junior Deputy Assistant Advisor to the President” or such? [Apparently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying_in_state#Lain_in_honor) it’s rare but not completely unprecedented for a private individual. I’m not sure why he was granted that honor, or whether he deserves it; but the fact that he was a spiritual adviser to so many Presidents is, arguably, a big deal. > [@](#): > > Seems rather thumbing the nose at Jews, Atheists, & others. It doesn’t seem that way to me. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/52 "2018-02-22T20:33:15Z")
Yesm Graham was a private individual, but he may still lay “In Honor” as it is called, in the Captol Rotunda. He’s not the first private individual to do so. I looked it up and there have been three before, according to one list. Only one was named however, Rosa Parks. She was not an elected official, was she? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/53 "2018-02-22T20:37:12Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Only one was named however, Rosa Parks. She was not an elected official, was she? No, she never ran for anything. She always took the bus. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/54 "2018-02-22T20:44:00Z")
[The full list.](https://www.aoc.gov/nations-stage/lying-state) The 2 recent others were Jacob Joseph Chestnut and John Michael Gibson, United States Capitol Police officers killed at the U.S. Capitol in the line of duty on July 24, 1998. There have been quite a few others. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269/55 "2018-02-23T23:49:50Z")
So glad to see Daniel Inouye did. Now, _that_ was one huge American hero. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-dies-at-99/809269.md?page=2)