Poor Jackie Mason — the deluded icksters of Jews 4 Jesus use his status as a Jewish icon to promote their evil cult in one of their design-challenged flyers and now a New York court says it’s actually legal.

Distinguished University of Toledo Professor of Law Emeritus Howard M. Friedman reports on his blog Religious Clause that Mason has lost his case against J4J:

The court held that a reasonable reader of the pamphlet would not have thought that Mason endorses the views of Jews for Jesus. It held that newsworthy events or matters of public interest are not covered by the privacy statute, and that the distribution of the pamphlets was constitutionally protected speech.

I’m no lawyer (much to mother’s disappointment,) but it’s not the “reasonable readers” that we’re worried about here. Anybody who accepts a pamphlet from J4J rather than shrieking “Back off, beeotch!” and then actually reads it instead of depositing in the closest garbage can is already a compromised individual.

And though Mason’s case was based upon privacy rather than copyright laws, a celebrity should be able to protect his/her own brand from hideous misappropriations implying that they endorse they don’t — especially something as seriously screwed as J4J. If Jimmy Dean sausage had used his picture in their advertisments, he would have won the case, right? That judge is either whacked on Oxycontin, an anti-Semite, or a Jesus freak.

Don’t take my windbag word for it — download the original pamphlet and decide whether Jackie got shafted. But beware if your hard drive starts getting glassy-eyed and quoting Scripture.

Hat tip: Jewschool.