MSNBC Guest Equates Paris Attack with Jerry Falwell Suing Hustler Magazine

MSNBC Guest Equates Jerry Falwell Suing Hustler to Paris Attack (NewsBusters)

On Wednesday's Now With Alex Wagner on MSNBC, Eric Bates raised the specter of censorship by Christian conservatives during a panel discussion on the past Muslim backlash against Charlie Hebdo magazine – the target of an Islamic terrorist attack in Paris earlier in the day. Bates, a former executive editor for Rolling Stone magazine, cited Jerry Falwell's lawsuit against porn magazine Hustler in the 1980s as an apparent example of "religious fundamentalists of all stripes and of nationalities have this penchant to say, we want to be able tell you what you can and can't portray."

The left-wing guest, who now works for Glenn Greenwald's First Look Media project, outlined that Falwell "sued Hustler magazine for portraying him having – I believe it was drunken incest with his mother in an outhouse – again, in a visual form – and won a $150,000 court case against Hustler for that. It was overturned by the Supreme Court, I think, eight-to-zero.