Christian fundies threaten lawsuits for humor

An organization that exposes the falsehoods of the fundamentalist “ex-gay” movement has been threatened with a law suit by a group affiliated with Rev. Jerry Falwell’s misnamed “Liberty University”.

The group published a parody of an ad put out by one of these fake “ex-gay” groups. The author of the parody has also been subjected to intimidating letters from the group which is acting on behalf of a collection of “ex-gay ministries”.

Now once an image becomes news then it is allowed to be shown. And I doubt that the Taliban’s lawyers have a leg to stand on. Here is the parody image that they say violates their rights.



Here is the original photo which was changed. It’s part of the anti-gay campaign of the Religious Right Taliban.




In response to the threats and intimidation from these loving Christians another web site has done a parody of the parody. Here is what they showed:



Poor Jerry. Not only did he bloat out like a beached whale but he should know better. An ad parody done in Hustler magazine years ago ridiculed the pompous, sanctimonious twit. He sued over the parody. He pushed the matter into the Supreme Court and lost. Well, lost isn’t exactly the word. Typical of these “victims” they used the parody to raise huge amounts of money from the dumb flock they keep. Falwell played the parody thing up to get donations.

Looking at the two images I don’t think that God’s attorneys have a case. The photo was cropped. The sign is in public. The sign itself was changed. And the only thing they can claim any ownership over is the sign not the surrounded buildings. Parodies are allowed by the law. This is an attempt by the Religious Right crowd to intimidate.

The excuse for their intimidation is that the sign has a very faint copy of their logo on it. They told one web site: “You have not been licensed or authorized to use either the image or the logo belonging to Exodus.” I bet you didn't even notice the so-called logo when you looked at the picture.

Now you all may remember that Liberty Counsel is the group that we exposed for lying about a ban on Christmas songs at one school. They threatened the school with litigation and raised funds based on this distortion of the truth. Their whole reason for existing is to attempt to intimidate people. Don’t you just love Christians? They are so caring and concerned and can’t wait to sue the pants off people. They assume that they can get away with this most of the time because they get funded just to sue people. So donations pay for their threats but they assume their victims pay out of their own pockets. Thus they assume, that even when they are wrong, they may win since they can impose legal costs on their victims sufficient to force them to back down.

Now when litigious jerks on the Left do this the Right whines and shouts about it. But these people are hypocrites to the core.

Others report that the so-called logo was never registered for protection. In addition it has been said that trademarks don’t cover issues like this and that it’s “fair use” under the law. Logos are used often in parodies for other organizations.

Now what the would-be religious censors don’t understand because they are as dense as shit is that when you do something like this you spread the message you try to stifle. The idiot Islamists rioting over the Danish cartoons are responsible for more people seeing those cartoons than anyone else. Now the threatening letters by religious nuts are having the same results. Good work fellows! Your stupidity does more to undermine your fanatical cause than anything your critics could do. I applaud you. Keep up the good work.