PBS Religion Ban Carries Stench of Censorship
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has banned member stations from carrying new religious TV programs; the few existing ones can continue. Catholic League president Bill Donohue reacts to this news:The stated reason for censoring new religious programming goes like this: (a) a ban on sectarian programming has been in place since 1985 but was never enforced, (b) PBS started to review its rules last year when the transition to digital TV was being contemplated, and (c) PBS expressed concerns that having religious programming may imply official endorsement. None of these reasons is persuasive.
A rule not enforced is a non-starter, much like jay walking statutes in New York—everyone knows that non-enforcement means it’s legal. Citing church and state concerns is pure bunk: there is no federal law banning religious programming by PBS. As for the review being sparked by the move to digital, the record shows that more was at work than this.
In December 2005, PBS aired a few shows with mildly religious overtones that angered its anti-religious members. Renee Fleming sang Christmas songs in between comments made about the importance of Christmas; a three-part documentary retracing the routes taken in the first five books of the Bible, “Walking the Bible,” aired; a month later, a documentary with a veneer of religious trappings was shown about two teenagers in rural America who pulled themselves out of poverty; and a year-end Pledge Drive featured Dr. Wayne Dyer, a self-help guru opposed to organized religion who nonetheless carries “spiritual baggage.” It was after these shows aired that PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler felt the heat and the in-house conversation began.
It never takes much to push secular buttons, but caving in to the voices of intolerance is shameful. That the religious gag rule is taking place in the age of Obama is not something that has escaped our notice. The stench is unmistakable.
PBS Religion Ban Carries Stench of Censorship
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Secular Buttons?
that is laughable. The Christians in this country are the ones who have never been able to rest since our founding father's left god out of the constitution . Always trying to get their prayers in public areas, their myth's of origin taught as a scientific plausibility in the public schools they even try to get their commandments posted in our city, county and state courthouses.
Time and again the Christian organizations of this country forget that our country is based on secular values and that no entity of the state at whatever level has to have any religious conotation, symbol or ortherwise attached to it.
If you want your Christian shows broadcast, leave PBS alone, and go to one of the various private Christian run or, at least Christain-friendly, stations and pay whatever it costs to have it shown.
No caving in, no intolerance and no shame. Just go reread the constitution.
- mangueken
June 17, 2009 8:54PM
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I support getting rid of the religious stench at PBS
Mr. Donohue,
What are you complaining about? You have your own superstition TV channel (EWTN) on which you can proclaim catholic superstitions to anyone who cares to listen to catholic stench.
This is not a christian nation . It is a nation where reason (state) and superstition ( church ) are constitutionally separated. Keep PUBLIC TV separated from religious superstition. As a non-believer of any superstition, I object to religious stench creeping in PBS.
I know you get paid to make as much stink as you can. That is your constitutional right.
- gma
June 17, 2009 9:32PM
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Why is everything Obama's fault?
This is occurring "in the age of Obama", like this is something the man orchestrated.
I think it's more appropriate to say it's occurring in "the age where the Pope doesn't believe that condoms have anything to do with HIV prevention, or when christian clerics protest the death of soldiers saying God is trying to hurt America because of gay marriage, or when preachers and politicians speak about Christian values and go out and have affair after affair."
You don't think those things MIGHT have an impact on the religious discourse in this country?
- quantummechanik
June 18, 2009 11:24AM
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Free Country
I think that a station that relies on the public for financial contribution would be more concerned about their veiwers and less about their 'in-house controversies.'
ABC did a report entitled "Who Gives and Who Doesn't". Below is a quote from that report.
"Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money : four times as much."
To view the entire article: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=2682730&page=1
I am curious to see how this decision will affect their bottom line.
For people who think that this country wasn't founded on Christian values, I have pasted three quote from our founding fathers.
“It cannot be emphasized
too strongly or too often that
this great nation was founded
not by religionists but by
Christians... not on religions
but on the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.”— Patrick Henry
“It is impossible to rightly
govern…without God and the
Bible” — George Washington
“If we abide by the
principles taught in the Bible,
our country will go on
prospering, but if we neglect
its instruction and authority,
no man can tell how soon a
catastrophe may overcome us,
and bury all our glory in
profound obscurity."
— Daniel Webster
What exactly are secular values? Are they defined by the government or each individual? Using this logic, Hilter or Stalin aren't guilty of any wrong doing.
Morality is itself a religious concept.
- jmunsey828
June 18, 2009 1:06PM
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Morality has nothing to do with any superstition
The golden rule (don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself) is deeply embedded in our evolutionary past.
No superstitious explanations (like imaginary gods) are needed for this.
If you strip out of the old and new testament everything that is superstition (virgin births, resurrection, ...) and everything that we now find immoral (slavery, killing women and children , rape, ...) then what is left is the golden rule.
Do you really think, jmunsey828 that in the fictitious story of moses and the 10 commandments, his followers had no idea that you should not murder , rape, kill, steal, lie, ... until he came down with the tablets with the 10 commandments?
Immorality is a religious concept. Go read the man-made bible .
- gma
June 19, 2009 9:27PM
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An uncredible "Stench of Censorship"
President Donohue and the Catholic League didn't carefully review the updated PBS requirement on religious programming for member stations, which is summarized by this 6/16/09 posting on "Current," a public broadcasting newspaper, at www.current.org :
"PBS board okays 'three nons' requirement
In a compromise with the small number of PBS stations running religious programming, the PBS board today approved a membership requirement that would allow those shows to continue but would ban more sectarian programs to be added on PRIMARY channels. Also, religious programs may be carried on MULTICAST channels or other PLATFORMS as long as PBS branding is not included. This was the final requirement recommended by the Station Services Committee after more than a year's work updating membership criteria. The "three nons" question had been sent back to the system for additional input (see Current, April 13)...." [Emphases added]
As Donahue and the League failed to note, the PBS board updated its membership requirement on religious programming to accommodate the federally mandated 6/12/09 conversion from analog to digital television, whereby 356 local PBS stations can multicast two or more digital channels from one FCC-licensed transmitter.
For example, TPT (Twin Cities Public Television) in Saint Paul is using two licensed transmitters to multicast one PRIMARY channel in a high-definition format and three SECONDARY channels in standard-definition formats. All can be received by over-the-air and cable-TV viewers. The PRIMARY channel and one SECONDARY channel can be received by satellite-TV viewers.
Per my understanding of the updated requirement, TPT could provide Catholic, Lutheran and other church services on its SECONDARY channels if they weren't branded as PBS-distributed services. And TPT's Website could also be a PLATFORM for church services if they weren't PBS branded.
That could not be credibly characterized by Donohue and the League as the "Stench of Censorship." They also failed to note that PBS and its member stations continue to provide a wide range of nonsectarian programming, with the award-winning
"Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" being one example.
In short, they didn't get their facts straight.
Richard Lee Dechert
Maplewood, Minnesota
(A media researcher and retired TPT staffer speaking only for myself.)
- Richard Lee Dechert June 19, 2009 10:41PM
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