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Controversial Television Advertising – An Extravaganza
Aren’t people funny. And in line with my ‘more is always better’ creed, if people are funny then societies that are made up of people must be even funnier. It depends, I suppose, on how much I’m feeling like internalizing my complete and utter disgust at the perpetuation of exclusionary, divisive, and harmful social practices. Sometimes I’m up for it. Of course, probably the fact that I’m not the person to excluded, divided against and harmed makes it much easier for me to brush off the perpetual reality of these components of our funny society.
For me, I’m just this average guy that looks for answers in beakers and bunsen burners more so than in stories and tradition. This is where it becomes a little sticky for me. Part of my problem with churches, not religion and spirituality, is my perception of continued exclusion and divisiveness in all sorts of forms.
Apparently I’m not alone, because when the United Church of Christ did some research they found that many people felt alienated by institutional churches. With this in mind, the organization that started as a result of the racist practices of the media during the civil rights struggles decided that a new manifestation of exclusion and marginalization was taking a prominent role in contemporary society and media. So, UCC decided to undertake a campaign to promote inclusiveness within their group. All are welcome is the idea. The funny part hasn’t come up yet.
The funny part is that this idea that is seemingly completely congruent with the very principals upon which this country was established got the churches commercials banned from both NBC and ABC broadcasts. HA! Well, what do you do, silly media executives, they’re living in a world all their own. They certainly couldn’t have come to such an “anti-American” conclusion with the support of the public or government…or could’ve they? It turns out that the impetus for the restriction of a little known right (speech) came from none other than our executive branch. Seeing as how we’re kicking around the notion of making a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, a church commercial that welcomes people regardless of the gender, sexuality, economic position, race, ability, etc is deemed too controversial. But, in this case mostly because of the gay thing.
Now, if that’s not funny enough for you, just give a little thought to the two entities that are engaging in the exclusion (three if you count the constituents that hire one of the entities). It’s the executive branch (the government!) and the fourth branch of government (the media!). The media. Remember, the primary function of the media? Government watchdog…whooo now that’s funny.
About the Author: Miguel Ruiz is an experienced internet author with many published articles in many different languages. Check out Oportunidades de Negocio and Negocio en Internet for more.
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