Accessible Airwaves

Once again, the United Church of Christ's inclusion-themed, 30-second TV commercial has been rejected by the broadcast networks and now cable network, Viacom.

The United Church of Christ's all-inclusive message has been deemed "too controversial."

It’s time for equal access.

1. Let Your Voice Be Heard - Send a Message to Viacom Viacom accepts ads laced with sexual innuendo, greed, violence, and the politics of personal destruction, while our message of openness and welcome is not allowed. Tell Viacom to make the airwaves accessible. 2. Tell Your Friends Broadcasters who use the public airwaves have a responsibility to operate in the public interest. Spread the word about our campaign!

James Dobson Doesn't Speak For Me

The following, reported by Religion News Service, more than caught my attention. It made me angry:

"Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group, is praising the removal of references to sexual orientation from materials accompanying a children's video starring SpongeBob SquarePants and about 100 other television characters."
(full story)

Can this be true? The We Are Family Foundation denies that pressure caused them to drop references to sexual orientation from the video's support materials, citing instead their desire to "shorten the guide." This would be almost amusing, if it weren't so tragic. Today's taunts often involve sexual orientation, like when I was growing up they involved religion, race or ethnicity. Of all references to tolerance, why would these be dropped?

What is really appalling about Focus on the Family's stance is that it is not only anti-gay, but also anti-family and anti-children. The purpose of these resources is to promote tolerance among children who, lest we forget, don't choose their parents. By eliminating this category in the need for tolerance in peer-to-peer relationships, aren't we signaling that it's okay—even justified—to engage in bigoted behavior towards more than one million children of gay parents under the age of eighteen?

The Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's General Minister and President, says it well:

"It is a sad day when Focus on the Family, a group claiming to speak for Christians in America, finds reason to celebrate assaults on tolerance in the name of its own version of family values. For Focus on the Family to bully groups like the We Are Family Foundation because of their efforts to teach children about respect for those who are different only leads to bullying on the playground. What's Christian - or American - about that?" (full story)

The Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the UCC, welcomes SpongeBob Squarepants to the UCC's national offices in Cleveland. [January 2005] Randy Varcho/UCC Photo

Focus on the Family should be ashamed of its wanton gloating at the expense of a safer environment for so many of our nation's children. I believe that those of us who are really concerned about a safe environment for our children say "ENOUGH" to those who would put our children's well being at risk for their own narrow political agenda.

Posted by The Rev. Bob Chase
3/18/2005 03:31:00 PM
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About OC Inc.

The Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc. is the media advocacy arm of the United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination of over 1.3 million members. The United Church of Christ was the first voice to demand that broadcasters who use the public airwaves have a responsibility to operate in the public interest. In the 1960s, the United Church of Christ earned its place in U.S. broadcasting history by successfully challenging the license of WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss, for refusing to broadcast news and information about African Americans.