(RNS) — An Evangelical Christian group that led a pro-Kamala Harris campaign in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election has removed a series of ads that contrasted the words of renowned evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham with those of President Donald Trump.
“Rev. Graham aimed to win a hearing for the Gospel with all people, whether they were Americans who identified as Democrats, Republicans, or something else, or simply people from another country who had no context for American politics,” the political action committee Evangelicals for America said in a statement released July 8 (Tuesday).
Led by evangelical minister and climate advocate the Rev. Jim Ball, the group said it had believed use of the clips for the $1 million ad campaign was acceptable under the Fair Use doctrine of the Copyright Act, which allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission. One of the ads, which compared segments of a 1988 Graham sermon with clips of Trump using violent language, claiming to be “the chosen one” and talking about kissing women without their consent, racked up over 30 million views.
In October, following a series of letters warning that the group was using its copyrighted work without permission, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based nonprofit that supports the ministries of Billy Graham’s son and grandson, threatened to sue Evangelicals for Harris (now Evangelicals for America) on the basis of copyright infringement. BGEA’s president and CEO, Franklin Graham, also turned to the social platform X to voice his displeasure at the pro-Harris campaign’s use of his father’s sermons.
“The liberals are using anything and everything they can to promote candidate Harris. They even developed a political ad trying to use my father @BillyGraham’s image. They are trying to mislead people,” he wrote. “Maybe they don’t know that my father appreciated the conservative values and policies of President @realDonaldTrump in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father’s views and opinions would not have changed.”
In its new statement, Evangelicals for America affirmed the Billy Graham Evangelical Association’s intellectual property rights, agreed not to use content “as to which BGEA claims copyright or other legal interests” in electoral advocacy without written permission, and said it has removed and will not report the ads in question.
“Our intent was not to infringe on BGEA’s copyright or to give the impression that Rev. Graham would have taken a side in publicly supporting one political candidate or another in an election, so we apologize to BGEA,” Evangelicals for America wrote. The group also said it “affirms” BGEA’s position that Rev. Graham’s purpose was to share the Christian gospel. “He never politicized the Gospel of Jesus Christ or the works he created through BGEA,” it said in the statement.
BGEA told Religion News Service the apology from Evangelicals for America “speaks for itself,” as does Franklin Graham’s original response to the ordeal. “We are grateful for the outcome,” the group said.