Word: givens
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gorman case provides the Assemblies of God with an awkward precedent as it ponders what to do about Swaggart. After Swaggart demanded that leaders of the denomination's Louisiana district act, he summoned Gorman to his home in Baton Rouge for a confrontation. Swaggart insisted that Gorman be given no special treatment just because he ran a big church. Gorman was immediately defrocked...
Though much is unclear about Swaggart's prospects, the preacher wrote in his magazine last month that God had given him an important glimpse of the future through a dream vision. In it, Jimmy and Frances attend a large meeting, where an Assemblies of God stage show is being promoted with magazines that contain obscene pictures in their centerfolds. Jimmy cries out in protest but is ignored. He bows to weep, and when he looks up again, the auditorium is empty. The floor is littered with debris, which Jimmy starts to collect. When someone asks him what he is doing...
They can rest easier now. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected Falwell's argument in terms that decisively reaffirmed First Amendment protections. Falwell had argued that "outrageous" parody like Hustler's should not be given the protection that more conventional satire and cartooning deserved. But while acknowledging that the ad was "gross and repugnant in the eyes of most," Chief Justice William Rehnquist said for the court that to define and penalize the outrageous would require some very fine judgments, allowing jurors to award damages on the basis of their personal taste or "their dislike of a particular...
Falwell, of course, was none too happy. The court, he said, had "given the green light to Larry Flynt and his like to print what they wish about any public figure at any time with no fear of reprisal." Flynt, always a blunt instrument, has put it more inelegantly: "I think that the First Amendment gives me the right to be offensive." And, to protect more important things, it does...
Those who agreed with McGowan's charge pointed out that the Czech judge had given Thomas her lowest mark and that the East German and Soviet judges had given Witt her highest marks. Yet Witt's coach could also find reason to decry the skating rink's cold war: the U.S. judge gave Witt her lowest score, Thomas her highest. Anyone looking to prove that the voting always split along East- West lines, however, would run into uncomfortable details, such as the fact that Britain scored Witt higher than Thomas...