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Newspapers today are aflutter over decisions from CBS and NBC nine months ago to reject advertising from the United Church of Christ. It is a significant story, but what's particularly remarkable about the press coverage is how many papers filed original reports instead of picking up a wire service version. Perhaps it's because every town has a UCC congregation to give the "local angle" on the story.

The reason for the "ban," the networks said, was that they constitute "advocacy advertising." Wink, wink, nod, nod—we all know what the ads were really banned for, don't we? Most newspapers sure do:

"CBS and NBC [deemed] the 30-second commercial 'too controversial' because of its depiction of gay couples at a time when the Bush administration has called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage," says the Des Moines Register.

"CBS and NBC refused to run a United Church of Christ ad promoting acceptance regardless of sexual orientation," says the Lawrence Journal-World.

"TV spot alludes to the acceptance of gays," says the deck of The Press-Enterprise's story.

The Boston Globe explains, "Two broadcast networks are refusing to air an ad from the United Church of Christ because the spot, intended to make the point that the Protestant denomination is welcoming, briefly shows two men who are holding hands being turned away from an unnamed church."

(Other coverage includes The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Kansas City Star, The Capital Times of Madison, Wis.,

Here's the problem. These newspapers are only partly right. In its rejection letter to the denomination last March, CBS told the denomination, "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups … and the fact that the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the networks." CBS, the network explained, does not allow advertising "on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance."

Go watch the ad and see if it's a commercial about homosexuality and gay marriage. Who's gay? Those two women sitting next to each other? Those two guys trying to enter a church at the same time? Gee, under that criteria, even hatemonger Fred Phelps's Westboro Baptist cult is quite the "affirming congregation," what with its allowing people of the same gender to interact and even develop friendships.

But apparently the UCC is quite concerned about churches that require boy-girl-boy-girl seating. But even more so, the UCC opposes all those congregations out there that ban non-whites from attending. Because the message of this ad isn't that the UCC welcomes minorities—it's that all the other churches out there hate you.

The ad shows some bouncers at the front of a church, refusing to let anyone but boy-girl pairs through the door. There's the two guys, but the others are a black woman and a young man who may be Latino or Asian. "No way," they say.

The gay stuff, if it's there, is way too subtle to be noticed by Joe Couch Potato. But the accusation of racism is none too subtle. And actually, that's the reason that NBC said "no way" to the ad. The ad ends with the line, "Jesus didn't turn people away, neither do we," NBC's Alan Wurtzel explained to The New York Times. "That message clearly implies that other people do."

In fact, when evangelical Christian leaders saw the ad last spring, Faith and Values CEO Edward J. Murray told the Times, it wasn't the shots of two men and two women that had them concerned. It was the implication that their churches excluded people.

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November (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48