TV pharisees
One of the reasons we don’t see or hear much about religious unbelief in contemporary American culture is that it is often invisibly, automatically deleted from the public sphere.
For example, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) this month has reincarnated its iconic television commercial featuring the son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Ron Reagan Jr. But the ad, which promotes atheism and church-state separation, will notably broadcast only on MSNBC’s prominent and left-leaning “Rachel Maddow Show.” The three main public networks—CBS, NBC and ABC—plus the Discovery Science channel, have reportedly refused to air the ad, ostensibly due to policies against public advocacy commercials. The 30-second spot will run, however, on Maddow’s program through Oct. 1. In its past incarnation, the ad was able to run on a few other cable outlets, including CNN and Comedy Central.
Why the commercial evokes such angst among broadcasters is curious; it seems pretty tame. In the commercial, Reagan says: “Hi, I’m Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist, and I’m alarmed by the intrusion of religion into our secular government. That’s why I’m asking you to support the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics, working to keep state and church separate, just like our Founding Fathers intended. Please support the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.” That’s it. The punchline at the end apparently is the most offending part, perhaps not surprising considering that Christianity has been drilling into us for millennia now that we should, instead, be very, very afraid.
The respected Pew Research Center, which conducts regular global and regional religion surveys, reported this year that a quarter of Americans now self-describe as nonreligious (a number that has been rising for decades). The FFRF itself claims 29,000 members.
That’s a lot of religious doubt in the land. However, where do we see its fair public evidence? Certainly not on the TV networks.
