from The New York Times: The United Church of Christ, one of the nation’s most liberal Christian denominations, accused CBS and NBC yesterday of rejecting a commercial it had produced about religious tolerance, which included an implication that other denominations did not welcome gays, because the networks feared hostile reactions from conservative political and religious groups.
The networks said they turned down the commercial for the same reason they had rejected numerous issue-oriented commercials in the past: they do not allow advocacy advertising.
In the commercial, two actors portray what looks like bouncers in front of a church. They admit only a few people, all white. They turn away a young black woman, a Hispanic-looking man and two men whom some may interpret as gay.
The commercial offers the message, “Jesus didn’t turn away people and neither do we.” It concludes with a panorama of people, including two young women, one of whom has her arm around the other. It never mentions the word “gay.”
