Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

Jerry began his his independent Baptist church with thirty-five members.

Jerry once opposed mixing preaching with politics, butchanged his view in 1979, founded the Moral Majority.

In 1983, U.S. News & World Report named him one of 25 most influential people in America.

He also warned parents that Tinky Winky, a purple, purse-toting character on television’s “Teletubbies” show, was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.

Following 9/11, Jerry blamed feminists, gays, lesbians and liberal groups for bringing on the terrorist attacks.

In 1984, he sued Hustler magazine for $45 million, charging that he was libeled by an ad parody depicting him as an incestuous drunkard. A federal jury found the fake ad did not libel him, but awarded him $200,000 for emotional distress. That verdict was overturned, however, in a landmark 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that even pornographic spoofs about a public figure enjoy First Amendment protection.

The case was depicted in the 1996 movie “The People v. Larry Flynt.”