Press: Distressing

A new twist in media law

The fine print at the bottom of page 2 in the November 1983 issue of Hustler read, "Ad parody, not to be taken seriously." But Evangelist Jerry Falwell took it very seriously indeed. The raunchy magazine's lampoon of a Campari liquor ad, which normally features celebrities discussing their "first time," had the teetotaling leader of the Moral Majority saying that he always got "sloshed" before preaching and that he had lost his virginity in an outhouse with his mother. Falwell used the ad in a direct-mail solicitation...