Judge Dismisses Christian Rocker's Defamation Suit Against Rachel Maddow

Evangelical minister, radio host and rock drummer Bradlee Dean is vowing to appeal a judge's decision to dismiss his $50 million defamation suit against MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

Dean filed suit in July 2011 in response to Maddow suggesting on her show that a "bloodthirsty" Dean advocated execution of homosexuals. (video clip after page break)

Superior Court Judge Joan Zeldon dismissed the case yesterday after Dean refused to pay $24,000 in Maddow's legal costs as ordered by Zeldon in June.

The following month, Dean's lawyer, Larry Klayman, filed a motion requesting that Zeldon recuse herself for bias against Dean and ruling in favor of questionable attorneys' fees for Maddow.

"We're confident that the judge should have recused herself from the case, due to her bias and prejudice," Klayman said in statement posted at Dean's blog. "The attorneys' fees were unwarranted, and in any case inflated, and we are confident of our success on this appeal."

The openly gay Maddow initially criticized Dean on her MSNBC show in August 2010 after playing a clip of Dean speaking with a caller to his radio show and saying, that "Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America. ... they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination. ... If America won't enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that. That's what you're seeing today in America."

Left out of Maddow's edited version of Dean's remarks was what he said right after her excerpt ended -- "And I continuously reach out to the homosexual communities on this radio show, Kelly, and I warn them, listen, which ones love?"

Maddow added a disclaimer, pointing out that in the same radio broadcast, Dean said "we have never and will never call for execution of homosexuals."

Nine months later, Maddow revisited Dean's commentary and suggested that he and GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann were "bloodthirsty" and paraphrased Dean's remarks in this manner -- "Foreign enemies rising up against America because Christians aren't doing the job of killing the gays." This time Maddow neglected to mention that Dean specifically stated that he opposed execution of homosexuals. Dean filed suit against Maddow two months later, and also against Minnesota Independent reporter Andy Birkey, and said he has received death threats as a result of Maddow's distortion of his remarks.

This past April, Maddow filed for dismissal of the lawsuit against her.

MSNBC's media relations office declined to comment on the case.