Networks squeamish about ad championing liberal theology

I admit it. I love television. Have ever since I was a boy.

An unconscionably huge portion of my brain dedicates itself to remembering bits from "Studio One," "The Red Skelton Show," "Rawhide," "Perry Mason," "The Mickey Mouse Club," "Rocky and Bullwinkle," "The Twilight Zone," "Ed Sullivan," "Bonanza," "Bachelor Father," "Dr. Kildare," "Lost in Space," "The Andy Griffith Show." I even remember daytime soaps and comedies my mother watched before I went to school - "The Gale Storm Show," "The People's Choice," "Art Linkletter's House Party," "The Edge of Night."

Television also was an important supplement to the two daily newspapers my parents subscribed to. Most local and national TV news - the earliest programs were only 15 minutes long - was probably fairly superficial, but the networks also took an early responsibility to make long-form documentaries on important subjects.

Maybe no single story was as influential in my decision later to spend a lifetime as a journalist as one I watched on a November evening when I was 8 years old. The night after Thanksgiving in 1960, "CBS Reports" broadcast an hour-long documentary called "Harvest of Shame." Produced by Edward R. Murrow and Ed Friendly, it detailed the disgraceful treatment of migrant workers in the United States, including my home state of North Carolina.

As a result, laws changed and conditions improved for that previously powerless group.

Power of ideas

I was reminded of the medium's power again last week with the controversy surrounding two of the Big Four networks' refusals to air a paid advertisement for the United Church of Christ.

The ad is showing on some cable and satellite channels, and can be seen at the church's Web site, ucc.org. CBS and NBC, however, declined to show it, citing concerns that it implicitly criticized other churches.

The ad shows two guys who could be bouncers at the toughest bar in town turning away people at the doors of a church - a same-sex couple, people of color, a person in a wheelchair - while letting in the nicely dressed white families.

"No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here," says the voice-over at the beginning. At the end, the screen displays the words: "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."

It fits into the denomination's current theme: "God is still speaking," - which deliberately ends with a comma, not a period. That is often followed by a quote from an unlikely source, comedienne Gracie Allen: "Never place a period where God has placed a comma."

The Rev. Kelly Sisson, pastor of Glade Church in Blacksburg and credentialed as a Baptist and United Church of Christ minister, leads the only UCC congregation in the Roanoke and New River valleys. She's heard from several people who've seen the ad, all of whom responded approvingly, she said.

"In reality, NBC and CBS in their narrow-mindedness have probably given more publicity to United Church than if the ads had just aired." she said. "It's sad that it happened that way."

Misplaced

squeamishness

The networks are under a lot of pressure not to offend certain people. The aftershocks of airing Janet Jackson's bare breast during last winter's Super Bowl and the lingering feelings of guilt for not having foreseen the importance of "faith and values" in the presidential election have left network brass painfully skittish.

Understandable as that may be, one has to wonder at the judgment involved in declining the church spot.

What makes the networks so squeamish about this ad when they don't have qualms about running promos of their own programs? Pick any one of the "Law and Order" series; pick any version of "CSI." Not only do the shows themselves lovingly linger over grisly crime scene close-ups, the promos display amounts of blood and gore that were rare even on movie screens just a few years ago. Sexual teases aren't even innuendo, they're promises of explicit "action" or scenes of the mostly unclothed bodies of sexual-crime victims.

And the networks worry about offending people with the UCC ad?

There is no legal impediment to broadcasting it. It's not libelous. It's not obscene.

You have to figure that neither "Harvest of Shame" nor Murrow's earlier expose of Sen. Joseph McCarthy would have a chance of getting on the air in this climate. Those were hour-long documentaries with a point of view - a liberal point of view - not a little 30-second spot.

Let's see, the ad does imply that some other churches (although no specific ones) don't welcome gay people, don't welcome people of color, don't welcome people who are "different."

Of course, most churches would deny that: "We welcome gays (as long as they're willing to turn straight)." "We welcome black people (as long as they are willing to act white)." "We are glad to have the handicapped (as long as they don't need an interpreter and can get up the stairs by themselves)."

Let's not kid ourselves. The UCC ad has a point. And the church is willing to pay to make it. But it might make some people uncomfortable.