Straight (or not so straight *g*) Talk

Both NBC and CBS refuse to air the United Church of Christ's commercial. You want to know what the controversy is?

In the commercial it shows two burly bodyguards picking and choosing who can attend church. Then, on screen, it reads: "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." The voice-over then says, "The United Church of Christ. No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here."

See the full commercial here:

UCC site

CBS says it "touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," and it is "unacceptable" because "the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman." NBC just says it's too controversial.

Here’s a newsflash: There is no *liberal* media, and this above all else proves it decisively. A narrow-minded, bigoted, hate-mongering, vicious, and ridiculously well funded minority has subverted our First Amendment rights.

Or, in reference to *why* the First Amendment was created, read Stephen Mount, of USConstitution.net:

“Some of the first colonists of the nation for which the Constitution was written had been seeking to escape religious persecution. The constitutions of several of the states prohibited public support of religion. And above all, the many varying sects of Christianity in America required that to be fair to all, there could be preference to none. It would have been disgraceful for anyone to wish to leave the United States because of religious persecution. So they decided it best to keep the government out of religion. Now, this is not to say that the United States was not or is not a religious one. Religion plays a big role in the everyday life of Americans, then and now. But what they were striving for is tolerance... something I fear contemporary Americans are lacking.”

This quote is from the following site:

usconstitution.net

As is Jefferson’s original reference to the ‘separation of church and state’:

Jefferson's Wall of Separation letter

My thought for the day? Read up on your history and about what America’s forefathers were trying to achieve, and *why* they were trying to achieve it.

"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are." David C. McCullough (American author b.1933)