Bill O'Reilly
Posted on 01/03/2003 1:52:52 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Fox News is threatening to sue a prominent evangelical minister in the ex-homosexual movement who engaged in a volatile exchange over biblical morality on the top-rated television program "The O'Reilly Factor" in September.
Stephen Bennett, who says he left his homosexual lifestyle nearly 11 years ago, has distributed a 60-minute audio tape program called the "The O'Reilly Shocker," in which he responds to host Bill O'Reilly's characterization of people who take the Bible literally as "religious fanatics."
Fox claims Bennett's use of clips from the interview is a copyright infringement.
Bill O'Reilly |
On the Sept. 3, 2002 program, O'Reilly, a Roman Catholic, called Bennett a "religious fanatic" who wants to "deny people rights" and suggested the minister wanted "all gays to go to hell."
Bennett said he has received hundreds of e-mails from viewers of the segment who said they were outraged at O'Reilly's "anger and verbal abuse."
O'Reilly is coming on like a "bully," charged Bennett, who still counts himself as a fan of the Fox News nightly show.
 Stephen Bennett |
"He's a libertarian who relishes the fact that he doesn't care what you talk about, but we have to have that right of free speech," Bennett said of O'Reilly. "Yet when it comes to me now speaking out – never saying anything nasty about anybody but just addressing the issues – he does everything possible to silence me."
Bennett said he has nothing against O'Reilly personally.
"This is just an issue the two of us do not agree on," he said.
A recording artist and national speaker, Bennett's Huntington, Conn.-based group, Stephen Bennett Ministries, says that it offers help to people who want to "come out" of the homosexual lifestyle.
Bennett, who is married with two children, also is a spokesman for the lobby group Concerned Women for America, which just prior to the Sept. 3 interview criticized O'Reilly for telling the homosexual magazine The Advocate that he favored homosexual rights.
Lawsuit threatened
Bennett received a letter yesterday from a New York City law firm representing Fox which charged him with copyright infringement for sale of a product that uses "almost all, if not all" of O'Reilly's four-minute interview with Bennett.
In the letter, Dori Ann Hanswirth of Hogan and Hartson warned Bennett that if he does not stop distributing the tape and does not turn over all remaining copies, Fox will file a lawsuit seeking monetary damages and injunctive relief.
However, Bennett's legal defense, the American Family Association, maintains that the tape is legal because it uses excerpts from the interview for the purpose of commentary.
WorldNetDaily sought further clarification from Hanswirth, but after conferring with her client, she replied that Fox News does not comment on pending legal matters.
Michael DePrimo, senior litigation counsel for the AFA's Center for Law and Policy, told WND that his reading of Hanswirth's letter is that Bennett cannot use any of Fox's material.
Bennett's tape, part of his group's regular tape-of-the-month series, is legal under copyright law's allowance of fair use and comment, DePrimo said.
"Certainly Mr. O'Reilly put it at issue when he called Mr. Bennett a religious fanatic and did not give him a chance to respond," he said.
DePrimo, who vowed to "vigorously defend" Bennett if Fox proceeds with a lawsuit, noted that it would not be legal "if somebody puts effort into a particular product and another person tries to appropriate it and sell it as his own."
That is not the case in this situation, he insists, charging that Fox simply "does not like the fact that Bill O'Reilly has been exposed as a homosexualist."
Bennett called Fox's demand's "ridiculous."
"Of course I can comment on that interview," he told WND. "If the heart of the interview was on cats and dogs, that means I can't talk about cats and dogs?"
After reviewing his tape again yesterday, Bennett said he has a total of about three minutes of audio clips from the Sept. 3 "O'Reilly Factor" interview and 57 minutes of original commentary.
Discussing theology
Bennett described his response to the interview in a column published by WorldNetDaily in September.
He said that in "pre-interviews," hours before the Sept. 3 show, producers called to discuss probable questions related to his Aug. 27 commentary in the Washington Times about promotion of homosexuality in the U.S. media and its effects on children, titled "The Gay Spin Zone." O'Reilly's comments in support of the homosexual rights agenda published in The Advocate also were added to the mix.
But Bennett says the "O'Reilly Factor" interview turned out instead to be "about Bill O'Reilly's theology."
After numerous exchanges in which O'Reilly tried to press Bennett on whether he thought practicing homosexuals would go to hell, O'Reilly said, according to a transcript, "We live in a secular society. You're a religious fanatic, with all due respect."
Earlier in the day on Sept. 3, O'Reilly referred to Bennett as "an idiot" and "religious fanatic" on his radio program, "The Radio Factor."
Bennett notes that one day later, O'Reilly compared his brand of religious belief to that of the Sept. 11 terrorists in a conversation with a liberal Baptist preacher.
Just a few days before the Sept. 3 program, O'Reilly responded on his show to Concerned Women For America's reaction to his Advocate interview.
O'Reilly opened his Aug. 29 program with this introduction:
In the "Personal Story" tonight, more attacks on your humble correspondent on the Internet. Now, I've gotten used to being pounded by both the left and the right, and very rarely do I see anything even remotely accurate on these websites. This time, a conservative group believes I am patronizing gays. Fine. My stance is simple. We're all Americans here. Nobody should be discriminated against. I'll leave it to God to figure out who's going to hell and who isn't. I'm not qualified, and nobody else on earth is either.
John Aravosis of About.com published a defense of O'Reilly in which he said, "What's troubling about this confrontation isn't that militant fundamentalists are angry about what O'Reilly said, but that they chose to respond to a political difference of opinion by questioning the faith of their opponent."
Calling Bennett a "self-proclaimed 'ex-gay," Aravosis quotes the minister commenting on behalf of CWA, "For a man to come right out and say that he does not believe in the Old Testament ? I think that many Catholics across this nation as well as the world are offended by Bill O'Reilly claiming he's an Irish Catholic."
Bennett said that his tape includes Rev. John F. Harvey, a Roman Catholic priest who asserts that O'Reilly is not speaking for the Catholic Church, which views homosexuality as "intrinsically evil."
Harvey, who runs Courage, a spiritual support group in Manhattan for homosexuals, says O'Reilly is abusing his public celebrity platform and promoting a heresy against the Catholic Church. The priest calls O'Reilly "confused" and "filled with pride – putting himself above the Catholic Church."
"Beliefs" AREN'T facts.
Aravosis -- the slimebag who gave us StopDrLaura.com -- is lying again. What both Bennett and Sandy Rios said was that it's ridiculous that O'Reilly calls himself a Catholic when he says he thinks the Old Testament was mostly allegorical.
They weren't "questioning his faith" -- they were pointing out that his faith is based on a non-Biblical foundation.
Well said. Here are some links on the health hazards you mentioned:
Theology isn't Bill's strong suit.LOL! : ) The sentence in the article at the top of this thread that caught my attention was the following:
After numerous exchanges in which O'Reilly tried to press Bennett on whether he thought practicing homosexuals would go to hell, O'Reilly said, according to a transcript, "We live in a secular society. You're a religious fanatic, with all due respect."It sounds to me as though O'Reilly was trying to set Bennett up by asking a religious question and then criticizing him for not giving a secular response. Doesn't strike me as an interview based on good faith.
The threat to protect corporate interests is one thing, but if they pursue a lawsuit, Fox should be ostricized publicly.
The only approach I've found successful when discussing the issue of homosexual "civil rights" with the average liberal is to make the analogy with incest, which also has a movement for liberalization.
I simply ask if incest between consenting adults should be protected as a "lifestyle choice" or "genetically induced behavior" the same as heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. Be prepared to discuss the genetic and social aspects of incest.
I ask whether the possible heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual relationships permissible among (Divorced) Father/Daughter, Mother/Son, Brother/Sister, etc., etc. should be protected "civil unions" with all the attached medical, tax, adoption, blah, blah, blah, rights?
If they think there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, "anything goes," I walk away.
If incest is not an acceptable sexual "union" between consenting adults (ranges from 16 to 18 years of age depending on the state) in our secular society, whether heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual, then we have already agreed that "consenting adults" is red herring standard - and society can have a social interest in restricting sexual behaviour between consenting adults.
The only conclusion can be that heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality then are equal orientations. Once here it is much easier to present the arguments against homosexuality that others have provided.
A 1999 snapshot of where this country is in the debate is available at Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). Their mission is "to assure that all people - including adolescents, the disabled, sexual minorities, and the elderly - have the right to affirm that sexuality is a natural and healthy part of their lives."
I really doubt that he sees the contradiction. On some issues like religion, religion and public policy, and homosexuality, his positions are ignorant and/or just plain stupid.
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I just wonder how this critical information can get conveyed to the public to counteract the fantasies the media have concocted presenting the "gays" and their lifestyles as harmless,poignant and/or desireable. Any ideas? |
scripter is presently working on a way to disseminate this info on F.R.
Scripter got bit by some flu bug and is down for awhile. :-( I was able to get the database about halfway populated, though.
By O'Reilly's angry response at the supposition, you would think he was gay.?
Well put - and true in my opinion.
"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." -Proverbs 18:13
That means you are a fool.
Legally speaking, you are so incorrect it is funny. Any lawyer would win this easy case.
I know Stephen personally, and he was far from a nobody before this, and was not even intending to go on the program when he wrote to O'Reilly. He wanted only a writrten response to his question.
O'Reilly is a disgusting, lying, anti-christian phoney who personally set up Steve via "previously providing the Qs to be asked ahead of time to make it smooth", then not asking even one of them, then refusing to allow Stephen to even answer his verbal assaults. Stephen Bennett was deliberately sandbagged. The phoney hypocrite O'Reilly conveniently quoted the Bible to his own destruction (out of context, of course), then refused to let Steve do the same. He misrepresented himself inviting Steve on. I used to listen to O'Reilly faithfully...I have no respect for the man.
Stephen wants no publicity, and does not even want to go into full time ministry, what with this sort of attack on him and his family and all. He is called of God.....but people like you and O'Reilly strain a family and marriage.
You only know one side, not two. Steve broke no laws, and his lawyers will win. This sort of suit has never flown in favor of the plaintiffs anyways, so nothing to worry about-unless a judge or jury hates Christians like O'Reilly does.
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked:...."
-Galatians 6:7
>>Bennett is committing copyright infringement and his defense arguments aren't going to fly with a court. His attorneys are either seriously incompetent, ignorant of copyright law, or trying to win the court of public opinion. He is not worried, nor are his lawyers. Simple scare tactics, plus God is on his side.<<< >>First of all, he's clearly a blatant self-promoter.
More ignorance. You are clearly ignorant of the man, as I know him personally and you do not.
Ignorance is bliss, you are having a bliss-ard.
"Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,"
-2 Timothy 3:3
>>Who ever heard of this guy before he was on O'Reilly? Now he's trying to appropriate O'Reilly's fame to further his own career, to the point of using O'Reilly's name on his audio tape.<<<
Who cares if anyone heard of him? This is not about publicity. It is about a false representation of Stephen by O'Reilly on the show. Stephen is not bringing the suit, the Fox News people are. A person seeking fame would be the plaintiff, not the accused.
Exactly the opposite. He simply wishes the truth about homosexuality to be out there. He did not want even to go on that program as of the night before.
>>>He's charging money for this tape, which instantly nullifies any 'Fair Use' argument.
It is his tape and he has a right. It is his ministry. Anyone who uses clips and charges has a right and it is daily done.
>>>He's also using nearly all of the segment in question, probably only editing out a few seconds in order to make his specious 'Fair Use' claim. While the tape may foster discussion, fair use is limited to short excerpts, not "nearly all" of a selected work. The courts will see this for what it is, an attempt to ride O'Reilly's coattails to fame. Fox is correct to stop this.<<<
God will see fit in time to remove O'Reilly's ratings over time. Stephen Bennett needs to ride no one's coattails. Another false accusation. God is his reward, not fame. The courts will see this for what it is-frivolity.
"¶ The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward."
-Proverbs 11:18
"Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."
-Matthew 6:2
His,
Bob Z.
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