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Atheist Larry Flynt, sued for defaming Jerry Falwell Sr, is dead

Atheist Larry Flynt, sued for defaming Jerry Falwell Sr, is dead

Last updated on: February 16, 2021 at 1:37 pm by Barry Duke

Atheist Larry Flynt, sued for defaming Jerry Falwell Sr, is dead 2021-02-16T13:37:36+02:00 Barry Duke

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THIS Friday, the Hustler Club in Las Vegas will be celebrating the life of Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flynt, above, who died last Wednesday aged 78.

But Falwell Sr devotees and other enemies of free speech – outraged after Flynt portrayed the televangelist as an incestuous drunk in a spoof Campari ad in 1983 – sure as hell won’t be joining the celebration.

Instead, some talking heads dredged up by the Christian Post are saying he was a ” scourge on society” who gave America an insatiable appetite for porn – principally in Bible Belt states.

According to Celebrity Atheists, Flynt targeted Falwell because he considered the preacher a “hypocrite.” In an interview on Larry King Live aired on January 10, 1996, Flynt said:

I always thought Jerry was a hypocrite, and I still feel that way. And I think the rhetoric he spews out has caused more harm than any ideas since the beginning of time.

King: You don’t think he believes in God?

Flynt: I am not saying he don’t believe in God. I am just saying I don’t believe in God. That puts me at odds with him.

After the ad appeared, Falwell sued Flynt and Hustler for $45-million. To raise money for the legal battle, Falwell send out two mailings. The first was addressed to a half million members of the Moral Majority, a movement he helped launch in the 1970s. The second was sent to 30,000 “major donors”.

Falwell’s letter warned readers that:

The billion-dollar sex industry, of which Larry Flynt is the self-described leader, is preying on innocent, impressionable children to feed the lust of depraved adults.

The letter concluded with a request:

Will you help me defend myself against the smears and slander of this major pornographic magazine – will you send me a gift of $500 so that we may take up this important legal battle?

The two letters, plus a third letter sent to 750,000 Old Time Gospel Hour fans, netted $717,000 to fund Falwell’s lawsuit – which he ultimately lost in the US Supreme Court in 1988.

‘We were drunk off our God-fearing asses on Campari … and Mom looked better than a Baptist whore with a $100 donation.’

In August 1983, Flynt and his team decided to target Falwell with a parody ad which had Falwell recounting his “first time,” which turned out not to be his first taste of Campari, but rather his first sexual encounter – a drunken adventure with his mother in an outhouse. In the ad, Falwell is quoted as saying

We were drunk off our God-fearing asses on Campari … and Mom looked better than a Baptist whore with a $100 donation.

At the insistence of legal counsel, the group agreed to place at the bottom of the ad the words:

Ad parody. Not to be taken seriously.

CNN screenshot

In 1978, Flynt survived an assassination attempt by a white supremacist and serial killer, Joseph Paul Franklin, above. He shot Flynt for portraying interracial couple having intercourse, and said in a prison interview:

I saw that interracial couple he had, photographed there, having sex. It just made me sick. I think whites marry with whites, blacks with blacks, Indians with Indians. Orientals with orientals. I threw the magazine down and thought, I’m gonna kill that guy.

Franklin, convicted of eight murders and suspected of killing 20 others was executed in 2013. Flynt spent the rest of his life in wheelchair as a result of the shooting.

The high profile lawsuit inspired the highly-acclaimed 1996 biopic, The People vs. Larry Flynt, directed by Miloš Forman.

It is available on Amazon Prime.

Oh, and you can buy a copy of the ad, cheekily bearing Falwell’s signature, for $45.

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The People vs. Larry Flynt

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