Friday, December 03, 2004

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage
I saw in a few news articles that CBS had refused an ad from a church, because the ad was about the church welcoming gays, and therefore too controversial. I didn't pay much attention to it because: I can't watch CBS here, I don't go to church, and I'm not gay. And I figure that CBS pretty much has the right to refuse any kind of advertising they want, for whatever reason. Then this morning, I checked out Popdex, to see what the digital heads in blogland are going on about today (or more specifically, what they are linking to most today). The number three linked site was The United Church of Christ page, showing the refused ad. So I watched it.

Right.

If that is too controversial for mainstream America, then maybe I am some kind of wild-eyed bomb-throwing anarchist. The ad did not even contain any hot girl-on-girl action! (much to my dismay) And the really weird thing is, I was kind of moved by it. I mean, I wish there was a United Church of Christ in Taichung, so I could check it out. The voiceover in the ad says: No matter who you are, or where you are in life's journey, you're welcome here. Now I don't know much about Jesus, but I would hope that is the kind of thing he would say.

I hope Kent blogs on this topic, as he is a thoughtful, conservative, (and most importantly) well-spoken Christian*, who also happens to think that gay stuff is icky and wrong. Otherwise, I will still be unable to apprehend the confusion of ideas that would classify that ad as 'controversial'.

*If you believe that Mormons are not Christians, I'd really rather not hear about it.

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