Nate Knows Nada

You probably heard about the ad that CBS and NBC refused to air, in which bouncers keep everyone who’s not straight, white, and nuclear.

In an interview yesterday, the president of research for NBC, Alan
Wurtzel, said the spot ”violated a longstanding policy of NBC, which
is that we don’t permit commercials to deal with issues of public
controversy.” Wurtzel, who is in charge of broadcast standards at the
network, said such issues should be handled by the news department and
not in advertising.

”The problem is not that it depicted gays, but that it suggested
clearly that there are churches that don’t permit a variety of
individuals to participate,” Wurtzel said. ”If they would make it just
a positive message — ‘we’re all-inclusive’ — we’d have no problem
with that spot.”

Except.

Martin Luther King, Jr. noted in 1958,  “Unfortunately, most of
the major denominations still practice segregation in local churches,
hospitals, schools, and other church institutions.  It is
appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven
o’clock on Sunday morning, the same hour when many are standing to
sing:  “In Christ There Is No East Nor West.”

And in the informal way that these things do, this holds true
today.  How many “colored people”, queer people, or divorced
people are at your church?  Mine could do better on some of
these.  Yours could, too.  At least the UCC is trying.