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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I actually saw this ad today on the TV. Caught it as I was surfing through the History channel. I’m glad to see some channels are showing it.
I too caught this ad on TV, but I am not sure where. It’s unfortunate, but I think a lot of the population will need to die out before sensible conservatives/Christians can begin making real changes to policy and dogma.
We eventually saw it on the History Channel and BBC America, so kudos to them for airing it.
The awkward thing about the strategy of outliving them is that they procreate and energetically pass their ideas on to their children. Breaking cycles like that is extraordinarily difficult and is arguably an even greater challenge as people live longer.
This is very true, although one’s personality relies heavily on non-shared environments. The family, as far as personality psychology can tell, only accounts for about 5% of one’s personality. However, the family can greatly influence a child’s non-shared environments sitll (ie. church, school who they allow their child to be friends with, etc.). So, you’re right, but I prefer to be optimistic about this (albeit in a dark manner).
I’m all for a little dark optimism, especially since the alternative is pretty debilitating. Rock, rock on!