Franklin Graham sends Harris PAC cease and desist letter

The son of televangelist Rev. Billy Graham threatened the Evangelicals for Harris with a lawsuit over the group’s use of his father’s image in political advertising, the group said Tuesday. Franklin Graham is suing to try to stop Christian voters from seeing how Trump's words and deeds contradict Scripture, the PAC alleged. Evangelicals for Harris vowed to take the case to court and insisted the law was on its side.

What is the PAC’s answer to Franklin Graham’s claims? Lawyers representing the PAC insisted the group violated no copyright laws by using the footage and deemed the association’s concerns meritless. The ability to publicly compare the moral behavior of Donald Trump with values shared by an evangelical leader like Billy Graham constitutes protected First Amendment expression, according to a letter from the PAC’s counsel. Limited use of Rev. Graham’s sermons falls directly under the Copyright Act’s fair use protections, substantiated by multiple judicial decisions, according to the letter.

What has Franklin said on the issue? Lawyers representing the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association issued a cease and desist letter to the PAC for alleged copyright infringement, an association spokesperson told the Christian Post. The Billy Graham Evangelical Association will continue taking steps to address the PAC’s unauthorized political use of the association’s copyrighted footage, the spokesperson said. WORLD reached out to the Billy Graham Evangelical Association for comment on Friday but did not receive an immediate response.

What kind of ad did the PAC run? The group released at least two ads attempting to place former President Donald Trump in a negative light by using clips from the sermons of Rev. Graham. The latest featured the televangelist reading the apostle Paul’s descriptions from 2 Timothy 3:1-5 about the negative behaviors of men during the earth’s last days. Clips of Trump are interspersed with the negative characteristics Graham reads from Paul’s letter, implying the former president bears the same negative characteristics.

Franklin Graham slammed the group’s first ad released in August. The liberals are using anything they can to promote candidate Harris and even made a misleading political ad using his father’s image, Franklin Graham posted in an August tweet. Maybe they don’t know how the late reverend appreciated Trump’s conservative values during the 2016 race and his opinion would not have changed were he alive, he added.

Dig deeper: Read my report for more about the latest ad Evangelicals for Harris released.