Flynt to Talk Falwell on CNN
By Bob Preston and Tod Hunter
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
LOS ANGELES — Hustler publisher Larry Flynt will appear on
Larry King Live to discuss his old arch-nemesis Jerry Falwell, who died yesterday at 73. Flynt goes on the air at 6 p.m. PDT.
Along with other religious leaders like Pat Robertson and James Dobson, Falwell’s name is synonymous with the wing of evangelical Christianity that has intertwined itself with American politics and the current Republican party. Falwell started his church in an abandoned bottling plant in Lynchburg, Va., in 1956 with 35 members and later expanded it into a media empire that included a 24,000-member church, TV studios and the 9,600-student Liberty University.
Flynt and Falwell crossed swords in 1988 in the court case Hustler vs. Falwell. The Baptist preacher took exception to a parody ad that appeared in the November 1983 issue of Hustler. The ad was a spoof of a popular liquor ad for an upscale liqueur called Campari. In the ads, celebrities would talk about the first time they drank it.
In Hustler’s spoof, Falwell talked about the first time he had sex. It was in an outhouse, he was drunk, and it was with his mother. It concluded with Falwell saying, "I always get sloshed before I go to the pulpit. You don't think I could lay down all that bullshit sober, do you?"
Falwell was displeased by this, and like any good American accused of incest and drunken debauchery, he sued for $45 million.
He sued for libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He didn't make his case on libel -- the copy at the bottom of the "ad" saying "AD PARODY. NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY" may have had something to do with that -- but the jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia awarded Falwell $150,000 for the emotional distress part.
Flynt appealed this decision up to the Supreme Court, and in a virtually unanimous decision handed down by a pretty conservative court and written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Flynt won.
In his decision, Rehnquist compared the Hustler parody to hard-hitting political cartoons:
There is no doubt that the caricature of respondent and his mother published in Hustler is at best a distant cousin of the political cartoons described above, and a rather poor relation at that. If it were possible by laying down a principled standard to separate the one from the other, public discourse would probably suffer little or no harm. But we doubt that there is any such standard, and we are quite sure that the pejorative description "outrageous" does not supply one. "Outrageousness" in the area of political and social discourse has an inherent subjectiveness about it which would allow a jury to impose liability on the basis of the jurors' tastes or views, or perhaps on the basis of their dislike of a particular expression. An "outrageousness" standard thus runs afoul of our longstanding refusal to allow damages to be awarded because the speech in question may have an adverse emotional impact on the audience.
Flynt and Falwell went on to become friends, often facing off against each other in debates on college campuses. Flynt released a statement about Falwell yesterday:
"My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face-to-face you will find characteristics about them that you like," Flynt wrote. "Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends."
As for Falwell's legacy, we'll let him speak for himself, with special thanks to Slate.com.
On AIDS: "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals."
On Martin Luther King Jr.: "I must personally say that I do question the sincerity and nonviolent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations."
On public education: "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again, and Christians will be running them."
On feminists: "I listen to feminists and all these radical gals. (...) These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men; that's their problem."
On 9/11: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. 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.' "
Falwell later apologized for his remarks about 9/11, but just last week, CNN asked him about his 2001 statement.
"If we decide to change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built, we cannot expect the lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past," he said.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour asked him, "So you still stand by that?"
Falwell said, "I stand right by it."
According to his doctors, Falwell died of an abnormal heart.
