Changing Channels

Is there no place that is safe from the prying eyes of the Religious Right? Apparently not, because once again they are going after the root of all evil: your television set. Doesn’t seem to matter to them that if you don’t like a show for whatever reason, you can always turn it off or change channels or go read the Bible. Nope, they want to control what you see if it doesn’t jibe with their narrow worldview. Case in point:

Last month, the conservative American Family Association began calling on affiliates and advertisers to bail out of THIS television show because it angered and offended Christians. Many stations have been flooded with e-mails and calls from viewers objecting to the series, and at least five of them, including KARK-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas, and WTWO-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana, pre-empted the premiere of WHAT show?

A) ABC’s “Emily’s Reasons Why Not”
B) PBS’s “Walking the Bible”
C) ABC’s “In Justice”
D) NBC’s “The Book of Daniel”
E) Fox’s “Skating with Celebrities”


Answer D: The NBC series depicts an Episcopalian minister, played by Aidan Quinn, struggling with an addiction to Vicodin, among other problems in his diocese. Jesus is actually a character on the series, depicted in imagined conversations with the minister. In the case of the Tupelo station, it replaced “The Book of Daniel” with some good, wholesome programming by running an infomercial instead.