Adding fervor to the religious conservatism debate engulfing the United States, ABC, NBC, and CBS have all rejected a commercial about religious tolerance. Produced by the United Church of Christ (UCC), the 30-second ad implies that other denominations exclude gays and other minorities.

When the Cleveland-based Church conducted focus groups and test market research last spring, the Church found that many people throughout the country feel alienated by churches. It says that the ad is geared toward bringing those people into the Church.

A voiceover in the commercial says, “Jesus didn’t turn away people and neither do we,” as two bouncers standing in front of a church admit only select while people. They turn away a young black woman, a Hispanic-looking man, and two men some may interpret as gay.

The UCC originally pitched the commercial to the networks nine months ago. But the Church decided to try its hand again this fall after the ad was rejected the first time.

Network executives suspect that the Church, one of the most liberal Christian denominations in the U.S., may have been looking to ignite controversy and make a political statement about Bush’s domestic agenda the second time around.

When the Political Action Committee MoveOn pitched an advertisement for CBS to air during the Super Bowl last year, the PAC received just as much or more publicity from the controversy than it would have had the commercial been aired.

NBC simply told the UCC that the advertisement was “too controversial.”

NBC’s head of broadcast standards Alan Wurtzel told reporters, however, that the network would have aired the commercial had the Church emphasized its own inclusiveness without casting others as anti-gay and anti-minorities.

CBS told the UCC’s advertising agency that the network believes the ad’s statement on gays in the church is linked to the controversial debate on gay marriage. The network said it does not accept advertising “on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance.”

This is consistent with what CBS told the liberal Political Action Committee MoveOn last year when the group pitched a commercial for the network to run on Super Bowl Sunday. CBS told MoveOn that it will not advertise commercials with a political agenda.

ABC told the Church that it generally does not accept any religious advertising. The specificity of ABC’s basis for rejection has insulated it from criticism by the UCC.

The Rev. John H. Thomas, the church’s general minister and president, dismisses NBC and CBS’s arguments that the ad is controversial. He says the advertisement had been broadcast in several parts of the country, like Oklahoma City, central Pennsylvania and Florida, “without generating a negative response.”

The UCC has criticized NBC and CBS for playing into the hands of conservative political and religious groups.

Part of me thinks this is true, though I also wonder whether airing a commercial that seems to alienate people of other religions has the potential to play into religious conservatives’ hands, allowing them to say, “Hey, see, we really are compassionate conservatives!”

Maybe this is why Fox News Channel, which consistently casts itself as the pro-Bush conservative arm of the American media, is the only broadcast network airing the commercial. Or maybe Fox is just trying to liberalize its ways…

The ad can be viewed online at http://www.stillspeaking.com.

Laura Nathan-Garner