I was planning on writing a fairly straightforward article about the increase of religious discrimination against Christians as evidenced by a recent incident here in SoCal.
I saw the story on the news last night and ferreted out the newspaper version this morning. Apparently the Orange County Register first reported the incident, and their facts match up with the clip I saw last night which included a fairly detailed (for TV) interview.
Here’s the situation. Compass Bible Church wanted to advertise their Easter service which they hold at a large center in a nearby university. They made a video and turned it in to the appropriate persons. It was rejected.
According to Pastor Mike Fabarez the guidelines they’d been given prohibited nudity and drugs but said nothing about religion. Yet when the church’s video was returned, he was told that the media company wouldn’t promote religious figures.
Here’s how the reporter worded it:
Fabarez said the church did receive content guidelines for their ad, which prohibited things like nudity or drug use. The guidelines made no mention of religion, he added, but the church was told promoting a religious figure would not be allowed.
The MSNBC version of the article added this paragraph, which matched the video I saw on the news last night:
The church would have been allowed to simply show the time and location of the service. Fabarez added he was shown example Easter ads that featured eggs and bunnies, but the church wanted attendees to know the topic would focus on the holiday’s history.
Here’s where things start to get twisted. I wanted to see what other sources might say. I found the story first on the local CBS affiliate web site. Imagine my surprise when I read this paragraph:
NCM Media Networks, which handles pre-show advertising for many Orange County theaters, gave Fabarez content guidelines, which prohibits nudity, drug use and promotion of religious figures [emphasis mine].
So which was it? Did the guidelines spell out no religious figures and the pastor turned a blind eye? Was he purposefully stirring up controversy, as some suggested, to get more attention than he ever would have with a movie ad?
I found a number of Christian organizations carrying a report on the situation, but the Big Name outlets were buried on Google’s page five or six. Finally I found the Associated Press report via the Fresno Bee and here’s how the article was distilled:
NCM Media Networks, which handles pre-show advertising for many Orange County theaters, gave Fabarez content guidelines, which prohibits nudity, drug use and promotion of religious figures.
The Orange County Register says NCM Media released a statement explaining the ad was rejected because Compass Bible Church chose not to revise the ad to meet content guidelines.
Yes, this is consistent with the CBS print report but clearly, it is not what the pastor said in the TV interview and not what the OC Register reporter wrote.
Yet this is the story most of the nation will hear. And who will get exercised over a pastor refusing to follow clearly spelled out guidelines? Where’s the story in that? This rewriting of the facts is sure to make this story of discrimination against Christians a non-story. I wonder if, oh, say a women’s rights group were to be denied their ad, would the story be so succinctly summarized in such a non-controversial manner?
By the way, I went to the the NCM Media Networks website and could find no guidelines. Anyway, tell me what you think about the issue.
Here is what they say on their website about what they prohibit.
Scroll down to the bottom—under Regional Content Overview.
• Birth control products
• Political advertising (Except generic “get-out-the-vote” messages that do not promote a candidate or issue,
which are allowable)
• Nudity, sexual aids, toys, clubs, entertainment, 900 numbers or events
• Theatres or other entities that are competitive with NCM circuits
• Promotion of Tobacco, including smoke shops and cigar bars
• Personal messaging, including marriage proposals, anniversaries, etc.
• Graphic, disturbing or unattractive medical images.
• Psychics
• Gambling
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Weapons/Firearms
• MPAA Green Banner or imitation thereof, unless copyright use has been granted and written proof is supplied
• Non-royalty-free images or music, unless copyright use has been granted and written proof is supplied
• The words “Friday” and “Saturday” when used as part of specific tune-in times, or services that are in
competition with theaters.
• Call to action, while in auditorium, Including promotion of text messaging or “call now” ads (except in
select circuits). Call to action is allowed on the LEN .
• Third-party promotions, logos or tie-ins, unless prior approval is given by NCM
• Anything that reflects negatively on circuits, movies or movie-going (i.e. ticket prices, movie quality, etc.),
or may adversely affects attendance
• Advertisements of pro-life or pro-choice organizations, campaigns or causes, or any mention of abortion.
• Support organizations and mention of specific diseases, testing and related medications
• Display of an inactive web address
oops. I forgot to close the link. Sorry
George Orwell predicted this kind of newspeak. Sad that it happens in the US to a Christian Church. Happy Easter to SoCal; they know not what they do.
Where’s the guidelines to say it is prohibited? And why should it be prohibited? Have we put religion with nudity and drugs? That’s pretty bad.
Plus, I’m really offended at the no firearms for advertising. It’s nice that they chose to silence also conservative beliefs from the air waves.
That last sentence was meant as sarcasm.
I love your title! I do not love the situation that birthed it. Georgi Vins, the persecuted pastor called “the Billy Graham of Russia” circulated a videotape around the United States after his release from near-starvation in prison for his faith. In it, he described a country in which it was becoming illegal to pray in schools (at that time, we had not yet won back that right), in which more and more places prohibited public displays about Christ and Christianity, etc., etc. At the end of this list, he said, “You thought I was talking about America, didn’t you?” Then, he went on to say that he was merely describing the way Russia became officially atheistic.
One of my favorite dentist’s signs reads, “Ignore your teeth and they will go away!”
Surely the foundational truths of Scripture that built our great nation deserve more attention than our teeth! With our privileges as a free nation come enormous responsibilities, not just to our nation and to our children and grandchildren,but to a world, waiting breathlessly for the help it needs to rise above its basic struggles to survive. We have those answers! Somehow, we have to live above the nonsense so loudly, that our actions speak louder than words.
The press is probably being paid big bucks to muzzle Jesus Christ. What’s our excuse? Help, us, Lord!
Voice of the Martyrs magazine (also online) often sites instances of these things occurring all over the world.
Lets you know who’s running the media.
Also makes you aware of how much of our media is controlled-we are rarely getting a true picture of what’s going on.
We get upset over Egypt when the government there closed down all internet and cell phone access, or when countries filter the news they give their citizens… not much different here, really
Good job sleuthing and parsing the subtle misleads!
I think that Obama should use his law training to right this wrong. Oh, wait, didn’t he throw the Defense of Marriage Act in the trash the other week because he didn’t like it?
I go to CBC and we printed out the contract which DID NOT say anything about the promotion of religious figures. In fact, the first news story that ran did show a somewhat blurred copy of the contract. If you pause the video and look closely, you can see that the contract does not list anything about religious figures. NCM media added that restriction on AFTER they saw the advertisement. Some of the news reports made it sound like NCM originally prohibited the promotion of a religious figure but they didn’t issue that statement until the day they told CBC they would not run their ad. NCM is a private company and they do have the right to pull any ad they want. This is not a matter of violated rights but it sure is a matter of discrimination and a reflection of the widespread anti-Christian sentiment in our culture. Thanks for your article.
Great discussion here. Thanks, to each of the commenters for thoughtfully engaging this topic.
MomOf3inOC, thank you in particular for verifying the facts. I took part in some interesting discussion at the OC Register about this subject — mostly with a group of atheists who weren’t willing to recognize this as discrimination. Their thinking was, if NCM allowed any religious advertisement, then they could choose to exclude one they thought was too controversial.
It dawned on me after the fact that these atheists look at all religion the same. They don’t understand that there is false religion and true.
The point I wanted to make there was that giving a pass on discrimination puts all Americans at risk. Private businesses, if they service the public, can’t discriminate according to law. If a clothing store didn’t want to serve Muslims because they were too disruptive to their business, they’d learn quickly that this is not allowed.
Back in the 1950s the businesses with lunch counters that would not serve African-Americans learned they could not make that distinction, and certainly their presence in the deep south was “controversial.”
This situation is no different except the people suffering discrimination are Christians. With this act going unchallenged, and so many Americans thinking it doesn’t deserve to BE challenged, we are opening the door a little wider for people to say that religion is fine, just not that Bible-believing religion.
And yes, the media twisted the facts as they summarized them. I don’t know that there was a big conspiracy, but I do know the media bias and that they would undoubtedly shape this story according to their worldview.
Sad that the truth was so easily squashed.
Becky
As an atheist I have a right to go to the theater and not be subjected to religious advertising. Just as you have the right to go to the movies and not be subjected to advertisments promoting evolution.. Ooops I Mean Science… Ooops I meant to say Atheistic world views. Such as Being good without god and so forth.
Hi, Rick, thanks for commenting.
If I understand you correctly, you’re saying we ought only to be subjected to commercials for things we all agree on, is that right? That would certainly narrow the available subject matter (something I wouldn’t be too upset about
), but I don’t think that’s legal. And that’s what we’re really talking about.
One of the distinguishing features about our government has been our freedoms, including our right to speak our mind, even when the majority of our society might disagree.
Consequently, whether your believe this or not, Rick, your freedom is at stake.
Let’s suppose one day we have a majority in Congress who practice Islam, and they pass a law that no opposing view, especially atheism, will be allowed. You’d certainly object to such a move, I’m sure. Well, this “no speaking in the public arena about that which is controversial” is a step in that direction. You and any other thinking person should be just as concerned about this as I am.
Again, thanks for taking the time to post your views.
Becky
Dear Becky You are absolutely right. I would protest vehemently. And I am protesting right now because the right wing is trying very hard to push laws through congress now promoting stuff like creationism and Intelligent design that have no basis in science or ANY kind of factual basis. Tax dollars are being spent in KY to build an ARK so that they can teach the validity of the worldwide flood that has absolutely ZERO geologic evidence to it.
As for Public arena… The movie theatre is not a public arena. It is a privately held entity that can decide what they want to put on their screens. Quite frankly when I go to the theatre I am glad that I do not have to explain to my grand daughter that yes easter is a mythological story as well. No zombies are not real.
PS: Thanks a bunch for responding Becky.