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"The problem with media representation of such issues tends to be that the media only picks up the loudest voices, ignoring the rational ones that do not generate as much noise. Voices that seek tolerance, dialogue and understanding are always drowned out by the more sensationalist loud calls"

This reminded me of something. Why is it that in the U.S., Robertson and the like have big broadcasting coporations, and spread their word all around, yet people rarely ever seem to be that willing to give that level of power to those who wish to further the social acceptance of minorities? Everything seems to work against activists. This isn't "Free Speech" at all, as it is limiting it by less direct methods. If there was truly fair, unbiased free speech there wouldn't be such a problem.

Similarily, as well as influencing young ones and impressionables, people like that give a bad image of Christians, or Americans in general. They do so much harm in what they do but because of "Free Speech" which is already broken, nobody can do anything.

Instead of taking P.C. measures then, media sources should be expected *not* to limit the voice of the reason. As it is, free speech is bent because the loud obnoxious idiot will get to spread their filth before anything reasonable. This is why you don't have any one great homosexual rights figure, yet you have Phelps and Robertson against it. The media doesn't like that kind of thing.

A

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Too long Clanky, too long.

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No, I lied. I'm never going to have a good sig. So just forget about it.

Say wha!? Explain your reasoning.

If only, Mikes! If only.

No one "granted" Pat Robertson any power. He founded CBN himself. Do you want someone to just give a homosexual rights activist a network of their own, so that they can reach the masses?

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I thought thats what they did with the Bravo! Network......

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But do yu think it would be as easy for an open homosexual to found a network and have a show promoting homosexuality and other such "Liberal" devices? How well would it do? How would it work?

It wouldn't. There's a REASON that you hear people like Fred Phelps the whole time, yet if I ask you to name any really major homosexual activists..? Do you really believe that gay people care that little about their rights? No. It's because something and I don't see what's wrong, if you're not going to filter destructive hate speech as they do in the U.K., with giving them the leg up so they can at least stand on an equal podium with people like Robertson. I'm tired of people claiming to be tolerant of gay people yet against just about any way of them gaining acceptance and recognition.

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It wouldn't be any more difficult than it would be for a straight person... The great thing about capitalism is that anyone with money can do pretty much whatever they want.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

(And there's the gay television network "here!", available to around 40 million US households, there's "LOGO", there's the PlanetPride Network and Proud TV. All of which would be just as influencial to their normal viewing public as Pat Robertson would be to his.)

Anyway - yes, there is a lot of discrepancy between the reality of any situation and the details that the media chooses to report on. It's not just in the States, that happens anywhere where the media is a profit-making industry.

But that really isn't an issue about freedom of speech. The Western media has freedom of speech - the trouble is that they don't use it in a particularly reponsible way at times. Their primary aim is to make money and keep their audience happy. One of the necessary evils of capitalism, one might suppose.

I guess the real issue is just whether or not people want to watch it.. Granted, if Pat Robertson has such a viewer base, it doesn't say much about the intelligence of America. Still, I am willing to wager that his audience is like the audience of Howard Stern (where 50% actually listen to him to listen to him and the other 50% listen to find things to complain about)..

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Then why the hell isn't the happening? And how is that a "great" thing?



Yet they don't have the same impact Pat Robertson does, nor the same influence. You don't hear Americans talking about it. How is it really fair freedom of speech when only one gets heard?

The problem here is partly Media exposure. What they're doing now just belittles both homosexuals and decent Christians. What they should do is show honest decent homosexual people who are fighting valiantly for their rights instead of showing very evil men rallying against them. Exposing how these people "Really are" only strengthens the rotten values of other bigots as they love a good fight, and to feel like *they're* the ones standing up for something in the face of general scorn, because they know they're not right deep down.
But if you show postive homosexual "things", there will be Letters, and it will be taken off the air.

How is this really "Freedom of Speech", exactly? A country that pulled God the Devil and Bob from the air purely because it cast God as a human-like being?

Using "Freedom of Speech" to take away Freedom of Speech. This is *Exactly* where someone has to step in and do something about it. Like it or not, the bad guys are getting heard more than the good guys, even if the intent is to show how bad the bad guys are. This is not true free speech.

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Yes, and this is the same country that produced the movie Bruce Almighty, who cast God as a human-like being, and is the second highest grossing comedy film of all time. And by the way, God's actor was Morgan Freeman, a black man.

There will likely be a sequel, and the biggest controversy I heard of stateside was over the use of a real telephone number that turned out was NOT owned by the movie studio, so someone was getting called a LOT.

Ironically, this very movie was banned in Egypt for portraying God as a human-like being. It didn't happen here in the U.S.!

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Sorry, a *Realistically* Human-like being. Morgan Freeman is too much of the wise old man to upset anyway. And Jim Carey... well...

God in God the Devil and Bob wasn't shown in a negative light, but he did drink beer, slouch in his chair and wear sunglasses. Oh, and it didn't show the devil as being entirely evil. It's certainly a step above Morgan Freeman, which is why it got taken off the air. But it's *still* ridiculous.

http://www.worthynews.com/commentary/Go ... d-Bob.html

Shows what some people are thinking like. I never picked up on anything that was really a direct attack on Christian beliefs. Even if it was, why does that entitle people to remove it from the air?

Bruce Almighty wasn't "edgy", God the Devil and Bob was. Free Speech obviously has very clearly cut limits in the U.S.

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Yeah, poor Ellen Degeneres... God knows her career's gone to crap because evil Christian bigots like myself banned her from TV...

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I've also noticed that Will and Grace was canceled after it's first season due to angry letters.

That was a tragedy.

It's also a shame that Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica, and Capote were prevented from winning any awards at the Golden Globes.

Also, I think you are confusing "a country pulling a show off the air" with "a show being pulled off the air in a country."

If there had been enough people watching the is God & Bob show for advertisers to want to advertise while it was on, it would have not gotten pulled. However, few people watch it, so no one wants to advertise, so it's not making the network any money, so they yank it. If they wanted to lose money, they'd keep it up and no one could stop them from doing that. Same thing happened recently with The Book of Daniel on NBC earlier this year. It was cancelled in short order, not because of the uproar it caused, but because it wasn't very interesting. People didn't watch it. Sometimes, right-wing uproar just gets everyone interested, like NYPD Blue back in the day. But if the show is lousy, or if very few people are interested in watching the show, that's why it gets pulled from the air, not because the christians made the government made the network pull the offensive show.

Oh please, that was hardly activism at it's finest. The majority of the "gay" characters were very stereotypical.

But anyway, as with Ellen, that's the not the point. Both of those are sitcoms, and not someone actually getting up on a podium and telling. Of course nobody's going to give a crap about what Ellen or Will says if it's just a show, one of which contains some pretty ridiculous stereotypes. I don't doubt that there were a lot of angry letters, but even Fundies have to pick their targets.

The minute they really start pushing it though(as with God the Devil and Bob), the, or the moment that someone gets up on a podium talking about this stuff in real life as a real life person and not on a show, that's when things get iffy.

Answer me this; why are there no(or almost none) gay characters in kids' cartoons? It is 1 in 10 after all. The one time they had that Spongebob thing which wasn't a regular saturday morning cartoon thing, the reaction was huge. Imagine if a regular kids cartoon had an openly gay character; and not make a deal of it, just present guys liking guys as a normal every day thing. Suddenly, relationships become purely sexual and it's introducing children to sexual concepts they shouldn't be exposed to, but apparently heterosexuality, girls and guys holding hands, is okay.

Sure christian conservatives don't take any LGBT or opposing view point of the air. But when it looks like it poses a real "threat", they'll start lobbying.

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I wasn't talking about "Ellen" as in the sitcom. That show wasn't very good, gay or straight. I'm talking about "Ellen" as in the person with the popular talk show and multiple HBO stand up specials. If there was some force deliberately pushing down gays, I would think her career would have died with her horrible sitcom.
Instead, if anything, her career has taken off since Ellen got cancelled. I've seen her make several talks about gay rights, too.

The reason people like her is that she doesn't whine. She says "this is wrong, let's fix it.", not "this is wrong because stupid christians and conservatives made it this way and they shouldn't be allowed to do this".
That's the difference. She attacks the problem, not the people.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I'll give you Ellen has done more than just having her sitcom version coming out, but still, there *are* people to blame, and as was said, as soon as someone gets "edgy" or truly challenges the ideals of Fundies, the backlash occurs. You pretty much said it yourself there. Saying this needs to changei s only one small aspect, point out who and what is causing the problem and how it can be dealth with another. This is my point - Fundies can be as vicious as they like, but if there is truly free speech, why is it that nobody on "my" side can be assertive or pushy? Even if it's not the right way to do it, if there is truly free speech, they should be able to, esepcially since they, unlike Roberston and Phelps, have a good reason for doing so; their rights are under threat.

Ellen's history is a complicated one, and she very, very nearly didn't get to do what she ended up doing. She had to fight twice as hard, and be three times as lucky.

http://ellen.4thdimension.info/modules. ... &artid=136

And that was all in the 90s and very early 2000s - before the Fundie backlash.

I wouldn't really near compare Ellen to a Robertson Equivellent. Not only that, you hardly hear anything of her anymore - during and trailing out of the 90s the U.S. was certainly more progressive, and Ellen would be rooted in that, which is why you don't hear much of her these days.

I'm talking about someone, current day, who does make a strong stand for homosexuality, and against the people(attacking those causing the problems and not just christians or conservatives in general, of course) that are trying to make life miserable for them. Otherwise it's only half the battle. You can't win on defense alone. You have to not only point out why it should change, but point out why it's wrong that it isn't changing too.

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Because most characters in kids shows are meant to be kids, and kids have only a very limited sense of what sexuality is, if at all. "Girls and guys holding hands" isn't an expression of any kind of sexuality in that context, only childlike friendliness.

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Let me explain something to you in pretty easy terms, Kit.

PAT ROBERTSON HAS VERY LITTLE INFLUENCE OVER US POLITICS. THE VAST MAJORITY OF ALL AMERICANS DO NOT GIVE A FLYING Funk ABOUT WHAT HE SAYS.

Although it'd probably be better if you watched the language, you said pretty much what I was thinking, Mikes!

Here, take some cookies. I gots Oatmeal Raisin and Fudge Chocolate Chip.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Look, taking part in corporate propaganda through mainstream media is something the gay community should never do. To achieve their rights, gays and people like me will do this:



Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rose to prominence without the support of the racist media of the 60s. It was only after his deeds that people started listening to him. The gay rights movement will follow that suit; it will only get stronger if people take action.

The revolution has to start somewhere, so what are you doing for it? Instead of worrying about what Pat Robertson thinks, why not organize or at least participate in a local LGBT alliance?

I disagree. Protesting is pretty much worthless. Most people either view them as "wrong" or, at best, just ignore them.

Protesting and rallying is what the KKK does.

Making a way through mainstream media gives your message some credance.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Mainstream media is only concerned with achieving profits. I see no benefit for the gay community in supporting it.

I see the drive for profit as a reason gays could benefit... Like I said earlier, the good thing about capitalism is that those with money can get their messages out. There are some rich gay people out there, too...

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Most kids know that they're "meant" to marry girls if they're boys and boys if they're girls. They only have a limited scope in that because any alternatives give little exposure or they are told that it's "wrong".



Pat Roberston is just one person though - there are other politicans who each seemingly have a small influence, but all of them together do influence young people and impressionables. I'm not so sure now that limiting their speech is such a good thing, but there certainly needs to be a decent counter to it(which is the only reason I slightly changed my opinion on the former).

Bother protesting and the media are ways to achieve something happening. What the media wants doesn't matter a crap if you still get your message out.

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