We’re starting the year off with a civil law case involving some very uncivil language. One of our nation’s most important legal battles over the First Amendment was a battle between a Nyquil-chugging preacher and an American flag diaper-wearing porn publisher. Does the right to free speech protect your right to be really, really gross?
Content note: This episode is labeled explicit for graphic descriptions of fictional incest. There will also be some quotes from primary sources containing racist, sexist, homophobic, and antisemitic language.
Featured image: Jerry Falwell in 1985. (Image source)
The Campari ad parody at the center of this case. (Image source)
Jerry Falwell at a rally in 1980. (Image source)
Falwell meets with Ronald Reagan in 1983. (Image source)
One of the Hustler clubs in San Francisco in the mid-2000s. (Image source)
Flynt in his later years. This wheelchair was gold-plated and worth over $80,000. (Image source)
A trailer for The People vs. Larry Flynt, a dramatized version of Flynt’s life culminating in this trial.
Sources
- Jerry Falwell talks about his first time
- ‘Fuck This Court’: We Obtained Larry Flynt’s FBI File and It’s Pretty Wild
- Evangelicalism and Politics
- Jerry Falwell Vows Amity With Israel
- Listen, America!
- The Sad, Quotable Jerry Falwell
- Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988)
- Excerpts from the Testimony of Jerry Falwell
- Amended Complaint of Plaintiff (Jerry Falwell)
- Key Instructions to Jury
- Transcript of Proceedings
- Religion: Jerry Falwell’s Crusade
- Falwell apologizes to gays, feminists, lesbians
- Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority Founder, Dies at 73
- Larry Flynt, Founder of Hustler Magazine, Dies at 78
- The Falwell connection
- Ohio Revised Code/Title 29 Crimes-Procedure/Chapter 2907 Sex Offenses
- Green v. Kennedy
- Republicans with a Fascist Heritage: Laszlo Pasztor