You should definitely check out the UCC ad
In wandering around the web today I stumbled across several blogs that had banner ads promoting a United Church of Christ (UCC) ad that NBC and CBS have refused to air. I ignored it the first few times (hard to imagine why I’d care about some church’s ad), but finally the repetition (in contexts I respected) convinced me to give it a click. I’m glad I did, because it’s quite excellent and I highly recommend it.
The ad is a wonderfully effective comment on the failure of many U.S. churches to be inclusive of those different from their “standard” member, and as such must be pretty uncomfortable for the “establishment”. But to have NBC and CBS refuse outright to air the ad is pretty remarkable. Presumably the “problem” is in significant part our national homophobia. One couple turned away from the “other” church is a pair of men holding hands, and one couple featured in the inclusive community at the end is a pair of women.
Head over to AccessibleAirwaves.org to see the ad and learn more. There’s some really interesting material there, including a nice blog entry on the role of blogs in helping the UCC get their message out when the networks won’t.
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