all sorts of crazy
2004-12-01

Flames! Flames on the side of my face! What is this country coming to?

CBS and NBC refuse to air United Church of Christ ad. Why? Because the ad says that the UCC accepts gay people!

Basically not only is CBS saying that discussion of gay issues is not allowed, they're also saying that they're the total bitches of the government. I thought that the media didn't have to follow the orders of the government because of that little thing called the Constitution. Were they scared that somebody with even more time on their hands than I have would call up the FCC and get their whole network banned? Or were they using the government's anti-gay stance as a justification to what was basically their own decision? Either way, it's cowardly and stupid.

The allusion to the gay-marriage amendment is just icing on the cake - apparently the only thing people do in a church is marry, so what would those crazy homos want to do with church?

Even more frightening is that this is part of a shift of the definition of "Christian" waaaaay over to the right. (And don't tell me that any religious affiliation would have a hard time getting an ad to air. The Mormons do it, and The 700 Club was a whole show's worth of fundie goodness.) Basically what the ad said was that if you're gay, it's ok to come to our church. What CBS and NBC are tacitly saying is that a church that accepts gays is no church at all. Being Christian and being gay are mutually exclusive propositions.

Way to go, you guys. Would you air an ad from Westboro Baptist Church? (Does the website description for Westboro Baptist sound real or sarcastic? I really hope the latter.)

(OK, so they wouldn't allow Fred Phelps to air an ad either. Could you imagine what it would be like, though? Apparently he now believes that God blew up the space shuttle, so maybe it would have footage of that event with a booming voice announcing that the astronauts were all burning in hell. But Phelps is probably too busy beating his wife and children while lying around like "an esquired Jabba the Hut" to make the fine commercial that his church deserves. Too bad, really.)