Leonard Pitts writes about the one moment in Jerry Falwell’s life when it seemed like he had a conscience after all…

It happened in 1999 when Falwell and other Christian conservatives met with a group of gay, lesbian and transgendered people of faith. As gay observers condemned the gay delegation for its involvement and his fellow Christians excoriated Falwell for his, the two groups worshipped together and talked.

Falwell and the Rev. Mel White, leader of Soulforce, a group of gay Christian activists, said they organized the meeting out of a sense that the language between them and the groups they represented had become harsh, acrid, unChristian. If they could not change one another’s minds, they reasoned, perhaps they could at least change one another’s words. In the spirit of the moment, each apologized for hateful language directed at the other. It was a brave and moral moment.

In a column I wrote at the time, I warned both sides that, while it’s easy to stigmatize anonymous others, it would become a lot more difficult after they had spent time in one another’s company, gotten to know each other a little. "How," I asked, "do you go back to being who you were and hating as blindly as you did?"

It’s easy when you just can’t see the people for the homosexuals.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers To Simple Questions…