Supreme Court won't hear Falwell's appeal

WASHINGTON - Evangelist Jerry Falwell on Monday lost a Supreme Court appeal of a case that sought to shut down a Web site with a similar name but opposite views on gays.

Falwell claims that a gay New York City man improperly draws people to a site by using a common misspelling of the reverend's name as the site's domain name.

A federal judge sided with Falwell, who runs a Virginia-based ministries, on grounds that Christopher Lamparello's domain name was nearly identical to the trademark bearing Falwell's name and could confuse Web surfers.

But last year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and said that Lamparello was free to operate his "gripe site" about Falwell's views on gays at http://www.fallwell.com . Lamparello "clearly created his Web site intending only to provide a forum to criticize ideas, not to steal customers," the court said.