Life in the Ice Age, #1

The sun's finally out, everyone's recovered from Sunday's travel delays, and strange controversies are back. The Boston Globe [BG] reports--front page--that CBS and NBC are refusing to air a 'controversial' ad from the United Church of Christ. The spot, "intended to make the point that the Protestant denomination is welcoming, briefly shows two men who are holding hands being turned away from an unnamed church."

So here's how the decision was explained by a CBS official:

Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact that the Executive Branch [the Bush Administration] has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast.

In other words, the network will adjust its broadcast standards (not as the Spirit moves them but) in order to reflect the Admistration's proposals? That is, controversies are generated from the top down: Moreover, we won't let churches talk about exclusion because only the government can talk about exclusion. (!)

I guess it's trivial at this point to note that this is also another instance of up-is-downism, since the ad from the UCC, rather than being a discourse of exclusion, is actually advocating inclusion.