THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 17, 1994 TAG: 9408170416
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
The Rev. Jerry Falwell's television show was pulled at a Florida station after viewers complained that Falwell's sexually explicit charges against President Clinton crossed the line between religion and politics.
WTLV-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., suspended the ``Old Time Gospel Hour'' until early September and will cancel it if Falwell continues to be more political than religious, said Ken Tonning, the station president and general manager.
Complaints about the show mounted in recent weeks, and station officials acted after one viewer, Cathy Corby, said her 9-year-old son asked her the meaning of a sexually explicit phrase he heard on Falwell's show.
She said she cleared the room of children and watched as Falwell explicitly described sexual acts in denouncing Clinton.
Falwell's spokesman, Mark DeMoss, said Tuesday that the nearly 200 stations carrying ``Old Time Gospel Hour'' that day had the choice of showing the anti-Clinton program or reruns of Falwell's Baptist church service.
``Most stations took the Clinton program,'' DeMoss said, but he could not provide numbers of stations that aired the show attacking Clinton.
Falwell's remarks about sex came during a discussion of allegations by former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones that Clinton sexually harassed her while he was governor.
Corby, her husband, Michael, their two children and eight friends picketed WTLV-TV Sunday over what they called a political show masquerading as a religious one. by CNB