Liberty Counsel, Exodus International may not understand copyright law

[Ian David]

Saturday, March 04, 2006
Liberty Counsel and Exodus International may not quite understand copyright law

Exodus International (see Wikipedia article here) is an organization, affilited with Focus On The Family, that claims to be able to, bluntly, "help" individuals "change" from being gay to straight. Primarially through the "transforming power of Jesus Christ." I guess gay and lesbian Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, Zoroasterans, atheists and agnostics are on their own.

It may be recalled that there was a touch of trouble in the organization in 1979 when two of the "ex-gays" (both men) who helped found the organization, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper (I am *not* making this up!), eloped. Together.

There was another little "incident" when, in 2003, another "ex-gay" member who was a spokeperson for the organization, John Paulk, was observed "flirting" (as he put it) and hustling drinks in a Washington D.C. gay bar. FotF head James Dobson reported put Paulk "on probation" and made sure he had a chaperone on any future speaking engagements after that.



Part of the Exodus media campaign is a billboard ad campaign to "spread their ministry." One of the ads is displayed at left. Image source from the Exodus website


Justin Watt, the writer of the Justinsomnia blog was inspired to put up a parody of the billboard ad. (see image to the right). Image source from Justinsomnia.



Exodus International is not happy. They have hired Liberty Counsel, a legal firm that specializes in promoting their own version of "religious freedom" that seems to lean toward "freedom" of the far-right pseudo-christian theology to dominate everybody else. Liberty Counsel has issued a Cease and Desist order against Justinsomnia demanding a removal of the image from the website. (see here for the C&D text). I'll be interested in seeing what comes of this. My first impression is that this is still covered by the "fair use" and "parody" portions of U.S. copyright law.


More:
http://bostonprogressive.blogspot.com/2006/03/liberty-counsel-and-exodus.html

[Maat]

1. I agree with you.

Liberty Counsel (composed of the most annoying front man imaginable, Mat Staver) would not be successful in a court battle.

And good luck to Liberty Counsel arguing that the second sign would 'confuse' people. I don't know of an American alive that wouldn't recognize it as a joke.

Of course, they may intimidate the guy. I hope not.

[RedXIII]

2. I'm surprised that...

PFLAG hasn't sued PFOX for plagiarism of their title.

[TimeChaser]

5. It's not even a second sign,

it's just a photoshop parody. :shrug:

[GodlessBiker]

3. Have they even copyrighted "Gay? Unhappy?"

[kevinbgoode]

4. Geez...the blogger should just contend that the Exodus billboard

is a parody in itself. . .I mean, puh-leeze. . .how can you be both "gay" and "unhappy?"