Rest In Peace, Larry Flynt: Renown First Amendment Advocate, Vietnam Veteran, Entrepreneur Dies Aged 78

Larry Flynt, known globally as an entrepreneur and First Amendment champion, has died aged 78.

Mr. Flynt had a strong desire for service to the nation, and first enlisted in the United States Army using a false birth certificate when he was aged 15, and had dropped out of the 9th grade. After 7 months, in 1960, he was declared supernumerary and honorably discharged. He then repeated that performance, and joined the United States Navy, where he served for 5 years, and was honorably discharged in 1964 during the Vietnam War. While serving aboard the USS Enterprise as a radar operator, he was on duty during the operation to recover John Glenn’s space capsule after splashdown following his first space orbit.

Larry Flynt (center) makes his way through a crowd at a rally in Cincinnati in 1977.

He was a native Southerner, and was born and raised in Lakeville, Kentucky, in Magoffin County, a still-small village in the practical middle of nowhere, in the state’s eastern central portion, due east of Lexington about a 2-hour drive on Kentucky State Highway 9009.

Mr. Flynt may perhaps best be known as pornographer, and publisher of Hustler magazine, a title of which he was unashamed, and for which an attempted assassin’s bullet severed his spinal cord outside the courthouse in Gwinnett County Georgia, on March 6, 1978, where he was facing obscenity charges, which he won. From that point on, he was never able to walk, and relied upon a wheelchair for mobility, albeit, a custom-made, gold-plated one.

For many years thereafter, Mr. Flynt’s sniper went undiscovered until an arrest for two unrelated killings elsewhere, when the suspect confessed to being Flynt’s shooter. White Supremacist John Paul Franklin said the reason he shot Flynt, was because he objected to photos in Hustler depicting interracial couples. He was executed by the state of Missouri in 2013 – an act which Mr. Flynt disapproved of as an opponent of the death penalty.

For many years, he had a long-term friendship with the Reverend Jerry Falwell

The Pornographer and The Preacher

Jerry Falwell, Jr. in the Bahamas July 2019, Instagram post

If “the farmer and the cowman should be friends,” then the pornographer and the preacher should be too.

Turns out, they did become friends.

By now, if you’ve not heard the name Jerry Falwell, some might wonder what cave in Tora Bora you’ve been hiding in for the last 40 years, or so.

And, if you enjoy any late-night teevee humorists – such as Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee, Bill Maher, etc., Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Conan O’Brien are ancient history – you should continue reading.

And if you don’t, you should STILL continue reading.

Why?

Freedom.

Because you do like it that way, don’t you?

Publisher Larry Flynt with the parody ad mocking Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., which initiated Falwell’s lawsuit against the magazine Hustler, and Flynt, its publisher. The case wound its way to the Supreme Court, and enjoyed a rare unanimous decision in Flynt’s favor.

First, some background:

There are now three men who’ve been named Jerry Falwell:
1.) The Reverend Jerry Falwell, Sr. (1933-2007)

2.) Jerry Falwell, Jr., (b.1962) an attorney/real estate developer who is the first born, and son of Jerry Falwell

3.) Jerry “Trey” Falwell, III (b.), the first born and son of Jerry Falwell, Jr.

It’s all your fault.

The Reverend started it all.

He started Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.

He started the now-long-defunct religious political action group called the “Moral Majority.”

And, he started Liberty University.

He handed the keys of Liberty University to Jerry, Jr., while he handed the keys of the Thomas Road Baptist Church to son Jonathan.

The parody/satire ad in Hustler magazine that started it all. The parody is clearly marked as such at the center bottom, and is listed in the contents section as parody/satire, and states “not to be taken seriously.”

Good ol’ country boys

Like Falwell, Larry Flynt was good Southern boy, having been born in the hills and hollers of Eastern Kentucky in Lakeville, Magoffin County, while Falwell was born in Lynchburg, Virginia – about 216 miles from each other as the crow flies… or a 6+/- hours drive not-so directly East-West from each other. There’s hills and hollers throughout the area, you know. They happen to be called the Appalachians, for short. It’s hard to have a straight road in those mountainous areas.

Like Father, Not Like Son

Part of the greater underlying irony of the matter involving the Rev. Falwell, Sr., is that

Jerry Falwell, Jr. Watched As Pool Boy Banged His Wife… For 6 Years

Well, well, well…

Since 2012 America’s Evangelical Protestant religious power couple, Jerry Falwell, Jr. and his wife Becki, have been sexually playing with the pool boy, with whom they later partnered in business – as well as monkey business.

Will we see Falwell Junior crying his eyes out on television, begging for forgiveness, like Jimmy Swaggart did after he was found to have frequented prostitutes in 1988?

In the parlance of sexual play, watching while another man has sex with your wife/partner, is called “cuckolding.”

Frankly, this event – in, and of itself – is no big deal, per se, and is certainly nothing new. By that, I mean that everybody involved was in agreement, and as Evangelicals often flout, there’s power in agreement. And frankly, no one was harmed, and everyone agreed to it. Furthermore, no criminal or civil laws were broken.

What was broken, however, was Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s trust with the private religious university he led, the general public, his followers, and those within his religious circle.

In common parlance, that’s called betrayal, and hypocrisy.

Maybe native Kentuckian, and U.S. Army veteran Larry Flynt, the longtime publisher of Hustler magazine, and renown First Amendment warrior, will pay for the pictures, for undoubtedly, there are some.

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reuters.com

Exclusive: Business partner of Falwells says he had long affair with evangelical power couple

by Aram Roston

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-falwell-relationship-exclusive/exclusive-business-partner-of-falwells-says-he-had-long-affair-with-evangelical-power-couple-idUSKBN25K1ZO

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader.

Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and continuing into 2018, Granda told Reuters that the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.

Granda showed Reuters emails, text messages and other evidence that he says demonstrate the sexual nature of his relationship with the couple, who have been married since 1987. “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda said in an interview. Now 29, he described the liaisons as frequent – “multiple times per year” – and said the encounters took place at hotels in Miami and New York, and at the Falwells’ home in Virginia.

His friendship with the Falwells eventually soured, Granda told Reuters, in part because he wanted to dissolve his ties with the couple and fell into a business dispute with them.

Giancarlo Granda, who was befriended by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife Rebecca while he was working as a pool attendant at a luxury Miami Beach hotel and was later backed by them in a business venture involving a youth hostel, poses for a portrait in Washington, U.S., August 10, 2020. To match Special Report USA-FALWELL/RELATIONSHIP REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Granda first emerged as a figure in the Falwells’ circle two years ago, when BuzzFeed News reported that the couple had befriended Granda and gone into business with him, buying a