Rolling Stone magazine is urging a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by three former fraternity members at the University of Virginia who claim they suffered humiliation and emotional distress because of the magazine’s debunked article about a campus gang rape.

George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler sued the magazine in July, saying they were defamed by the November 2014 article written by journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described in chilling detail a student’s account of being raped by seven men at the Phi...