In December 2004, the major media networks CBS and NBC refused to air the United Church of Christ’s ad that delivers the message, “God doesn’t reject people, neither do we.” When this happened in 2004, over 6,000 people took action at UCCTakeAction.org to tell the executives of the networks that they should air the ad.
Once again, a new UCC commercial, which invites all people into the church, has been rejected by the networks, their affiliate cable stations, and Viacom. Every day, the networks air advertising laced with sexual innuendo, violence, materialism, and the politics of personal destruction, yet the message of openness and welcome stated in the new UCC ad is "too controversial" to be shown. While some stations are still airing our ad, many communities, particularly those without access to cable, will never see this ad. To watch the new UCC commercial click http://www.ucc.org/commercial.html and for more information, or to see the old ads, please visit http://www.stillspeaking.org
In response to the decision of the networks, the UCC is launching a petition drive to tell these networks to air the UCC ad! This petition drive will be conducted online and is also available in PDF to print out and circulate among members of your congregation. Please have your signatures in by Tuesday, May 9. On the day after Mother’s Day, Monday, May 15, we will hand-deliver this petition to the executives of NBC, CBS and Viacom in New York City. To sign this petition online click http://www.ucctakeaction.org/showuccad and to download the petition in PDF format click http://www.ucctakeaction.org/petitionpdf
The strong response of JPANet advocates in 2004 generated widespread media coverage of the ad controversy and got the attention of network executives. Your voice makes a difference!
If your computer has trouble linking to the links above, please copy and paste the address into your browser
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Dear REV. ANNE,
I’m writing to give you an update on our Safe Schools campaign to protect ALL students from harassment and bullying.
This past Tuesday was a big day in Tallahassee – both the Senate and the House held hearings on companion Safe Schools bills. We testified before both committees about the need for amendments because the current anti-bullying legislation not only fails to adequately protect students, but it also repeals strong local policies that do.
The Bad News
The House bill passed its final hearing without being amended in a way that would either protect existing local policies or offer specific prohibitions of the most common forms of bullying.
The Senate bill, which is identical to the House bill, also passed its first committee hearing without amendments. We worked with Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, to offer an amendment that would allow local school boards to keep their existing strong policies. Despite Sen. Klein’s impassioned attempt to protect anti-bullying policies that have proven effective, Republicans rejected his amendment on a straight party-line vote, 5-3.
The Good News
Having vehemently resisted previous calls the do so, lawmakers pushing this legislation have had to state on the record that this bill is intended to protect gay students. Thanks to the thousands of emails, hundreds of phone calls and dozens of lobby visits you have made over the last six weeks, we have built tremendous support for ensuring that ALL students are truly protected.
Rep. Bogdanoff, the bills sponsor, went so far as to state that the anti-bullying training teachers will receive must cover the most common types of bullying, including anti-gay harassment.
Legislators pledged to revisit the bill if there was evidence that students are being overlooked because of the restrictions the policy imposes on local school boards. We will hold legislators to those promises. However, we still have a tremendous opportunity fix what is dangerously flawed in this bill and will continue our efforts as the bill moves through the Senate.
School Board members, students, community leaders and anti-bullying experts are rallying support - literally. Over 50 supporters attended our Safe Schools Rally in Broward County on Monday including two Broward County School Board members, Robin Bartleman and Maureen Dinnen, who spoke forcefully in support of amending the current bill.
The strong support from our broad and visible coalition ensured we were able to grab perfectly timed newspaper and television coverage that pointed out the serious flaws of the bill.
Keep up the good work by keeping up the pressure. We still have a goal of ensuring that strong local policies are not repealed and we can only achieve that goal with you continued activism and support. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for more details as the next hearing approaches.
If you haven’t contributed to our Safe Schools effort yet, click the following link today: I Support Safe Schools. Your gift helps cover the cost of getting our best messengers to Tallahassee to testify.
Sincerely,
Nadine SmithExecutive Director
I’m writing to give you an update on our Safe Schools campaign to protect ALL students from harassment and bullying.
This past Tuesday was a big day in Tallahassee – both the Senate and the House held hearings on companion Safe Schools bills. We testified before both committees about the need for amendments because the current anti-bullying legislation not only fails to adequately protect students, but it also repeals strong local policies that do.
The Bad News
The House bill passed its final hearing without being amended in a way that would either protect existing local policies or offer specific prohibitions of the most common forms of bullying.
The Senate bill, which is identical to the House bill, also passed its first committee hearing without amendments. We worked with Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, to offer an amendment that would allow local school boards to keep their existing strong policies. Despite Sen. Klein’s impassioned attempt to protect anti-bullying policies that have proven effective, Republicans rejected his amendment on a straight party-line vote, 5-3.
The Good News
Having vehemently resisted previous calls the do so, lawmakers pushing this legislation have had to state on the record that this bill is intended to protect gay students. Thanks to the thousands of emails, hundreds of phone calls and dozens of lobby visits you have made over the last six weeks, we have built tremendous support for ensuring that ALL students are truly protected.
Rep. Bogdanoff, the bills sponsor, went so far as to state that the anti-bullying training teachers will receive must cover the most common types of bullying, including anti-gay harassment.
Legislators pledged to revisit the bill if there was evidence that students are being overlooked because of the restrictions the policy imposes on local school boards. We will hold legislators to those promises. However, we still have a tremendous opportunity fix what is dangerously flawed in this bill and will continue our efforts as the bill moves through the Senate.
School Board members, students, community leaders and anti-bullying experts are rallying support - literally. Over 50 supporters attended our Safe Schools Rally in Broward County on Monday including two Broward County School Board members, Robin Bartleman and Maureen Dinnen, who spoke forcefully in support of amending the current bill.
The strong support from our broad and visible coalition ensured we were able to grab perfectly timed newspaper and television coverage that pointed out the serious flaws of the bill.
Keep up the good work by keeping up the pressure. We still have a goal of ensuring that strong local policies are not repealed and we can only achieve that goal with you continued activism and support. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for more details as the next hearing approaches.
If you haven’t contributed to our Safe Schools effort yet, click the following link today: I Support Safe Schools. Your gift helps cover the cost of getting our best messengers to Tallahassee to testify.
Sincerely,
Nadine SmithExecutive Director
Monday, April 17, 2006
Dear REV. ANNE,
As you may know, dangerous legislation that will repeal the strongest anti-bullying policies in the state is moving through the legislature in Tallahassee.
House Bill 535 - Bullying and Harassment - has passed three committee hearings and has a final hearing in the House Education Council tomorrow - Tuesday, April 18th.
This hearing presents the final chance to amend this bill. Without amendments, HB-535 could seriously undermine or overturn the strongest local safe schools policies in our state, including those in: Pinellas, Hillsborough, Dade, Broward, Monroe, Palm Beach, Orange, Alachua, Lee, Escambia and Clay County.
Three Things You Can Do
1) Click here to email the House Education Council and ask them to protect local policies.
2) Call our allies on the House Education Council and tell them to protect local policies by taking a stand for the necessary amendments. Scroll to the end of this email for talking points and phone numbers.
3) Click here to contribute to getting students, educators, and legal experts to Tallahassee for this final hearing. (Link to Donation Campaign)
Also, if you happen to be in or around Broward County today, please joins us for a Safe Schools Rally this afternoon starting at 4:00 in front of the School Board Building at 600 SE 3rd Ave. and show your support for protecting ALL students.
Additional Information
Anti-bullying experts say comprehensive bills with enumerated categories are essential to ensure that educators do not allow individual bias to prevent them from intervening. While categories do not limit the school's responsibility they do provide needed guidance in ensuring the most vulnerable students are protected.
Our local policies are models that should be replicated across the state, not undermined by the Legislature. This bill must be amended to allow local schools who are leading on this issue to continue to provide the best protection to their students.
Sincerely,
Nadine Smith
Executive Director
Call Our Allies on the House Education Council Rivera, David (R) (Vice Chair) - 850-488-7897Culp, Faye (R) - 850-488-2770Detert, Nancy (R) - 850-488-1171Antone, Bruce (D) - 850-488-0760Bendross-Mindingall, Dorothy (D) - 850-488-0625Greenstein, Ron (D) - 850-488-3164Justice, Charlie (D) - 850-488-9337Vana, Shelley (D) - 850-488-4791
Talking Points:1) Rep. Bogdanoff's bill must be amended to protect strong existing local policies that enumerate prohibited behaviors.
2) Rep. Bogdanoff's bill is so vague it will likely be unenforceable. Existing model policies known to be the most effective recognize that enumerating categories of prohibited behavior is essential to the enforcement of the policy.
3) Rep. Bogdanoff's bill must be amended to protect all students and to include training of teachers on how to intervene when bullying occurs.
Our years of hard work are paying off and a statewide Safe Schools policy is within reach. Please tell 5 friends about what's going on in Tallahassee this coming week and ask them to support our Safe Schools effort.
As you may know, dangerous legislation that will repeal the strongest anti-bullying policies in the state is moving through the legislature in Tallahassee.
House Bill 535 - Bullying and Harassment - has passed three committee hearings and has a final hearing in the House Education Council tomorrow - Tuesday, April 18th.
This hearing presents the final chance to amend this bill. Without amendments, HB-535 could seriously undermine or overturn the strongest local safe schools policies in our state, including those in: Pinellas, Hillsborough, Dade, Broward, Monroe, Palm Beach, Orange, Alachua, Lee, Escambia and Clay County.
Three Things You Can Do
1) Click here to email the House Education Council and ask them to protect local policies.
2) Call our allies on the House Education Council and tell them to protect local policies by taking a stand for the necessary amendments. Scroll to the end of this email for talking points and phone numbers.
3) Click here to contribute to getting students, educators, and legal experts to Tallahassee for this final hearing. (Link to Donation Campaign)
Also, if you happen to be in or around Broward County today, please joins us for a Safe Schools Rally this afternoon starting at 4:00 in front of the School Board Building at 600 SE 3rd Ave. and show your support for protecting ALL students.
Additional Information
Anti-bullying experts say comprehensive bills with enumerated categories are essential to ensure that educators do not allow individual bias to prevent them from intervening. While categories do not limit the school's responsibility they do provide needed guidance in ensuring the most vulnerable students are protected.
Our local policies are models that should be replicated across the state, not undermined by the Legislature. This bill must be amended to allow local schools who are leading on this issue to continue to provide the best protection to their students.
Sincerely,
Nadine Smith
Executive Director
Call Our Allies on the House Education Council Rivera, David (R) (Vice Chair) - 850-488-7897Culp, Faye (R) - 850-488-2770Detert, Nancy (R) - 850-488-1171Antone, Bruce (D) - 850-488-0760Bendross-Mindingall, Dorothy (D) - 850-488-0625Greenstein, Ron (D) - 850-488-3164Justice, Charlie (D) - 850-488-9337Vana, Shelley (D) - 850-488-4791
Talking Points:1) Rep. Bogdanoff's bill must be amended to protect strong existing local policies that enumerate prohibited behaviors.
2) Rep. Bogdanoff's bill is so vague it will likely be unenforceable. Existing model policies known to be the most effective recognize that enumerating categories of prohibited behavior is essential to the enforcement of the policy.
3) Rep. Bogdanoff's bill must be amended to protect all students and to include training of teachers on how to intervene when bullying occurs.
Our years of hard work are paying off and a statewide Safe Schools policy is within reach. Please tell 5 friends about what's going on in Tallahassee this coming week and ask them to support our Safe Schools effort.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
To my colleagues & friends in MCC,
I want to share with you what promises to be the start of a wonderful, yet uncertain journey. Tomorrow morning, at the close of an Ecumenical Easter Sunrise Service, I will begin a Walk across the United States with other colleagues. Even as I begin this walk I do not know how everything will turn out. The family challenges I face with Wanda have not yet been satisfactorily addressed. Yet though uncertain, the journey must begin.
I'm walking to help raise the profile of progressive Christians who are fair-minded, inclusive, hopeful and also Christian. I believe it is time that those of us who claim the name of Jesus and also dare to love the earth and environment, who believe science and faith are both paths to truth, who respect other faith traditions and welcome people, like Jesus called us to, as they are, who they are - I believe it is time for us to rise up and reclaim the landscape in this country from those who use the media and airwaves as their own bully-pulpits. I am not a Christian - BUT - not like those Christians. I am a Christian.
I believe there are millions of others like myself for whom most of the so-called "Christian spokespersons" simply do not speak for. I'm walking for them, for those so alienated from Church that they could never believe in a loving, gracious God. I'm walking to reclaim the faith that speaks of love, not division and exclusion. I'm walking, along with others, to fuel the fires of a new great awakening. The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr., Senior Minister of Riverside Church was in Phoenix with us last year, when we began to plan this walk. He said:
"You never know where the next Great Awakening is going to come from. Wherever it happens, I want to be present at the beginning, when the Spirit moves in wonderful ways. I see a spark of what very well may be the next Great Awakening here in Phoenix, Arizona.รข€
I believe this is the start of something amazing. Since the beginning of this year things have really begun to heat up. Several national organizations have signed on to support CrossWalk America (the host of the Walk of which I'm Vice-President). And in our Walk Wherever You Are program, we have churches and people across the US, and now in the UK and Australia, who are walking in celebration of the Three Great Loves (love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self). These great truths are expressed more fully in a document entitled The Phoenix Affirmations.
As we walk, a documentary film maker will be along for the journey. We'll be "blogging" our way across the US through 12 states on our way to Washington, D.C. On the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend there will be one massive party in DC to conclude the Walk, and to start what I believe is a "fire for a Gospel of Love that cannot be sated."
So often, though we share a deep love and abiding respect, we stand at different places when it comes to faith. The reason I've included you here is not an assumption that you agree with me. It is because you matter to me.
So I invite you to visit our website (www.crosswalkamerica.org), review the affirmations, join our email list, donate if you are so moved, but most of all - keep track of our progress. There is an interactive map on the website that tells what locations we'll be in through the 20 weeks of the Walk. You can also research the organization and its work at this site. As a shameless plug, there's even a promotional movie clip on which I share why I'm walking.
I'd like to invite you to also consider joining the PrayerWalker's Club. More than 20 people in my own congregation are part of one such group.
Whatever you do, I implore you over this summer to lift up a voice for love, to raise a standard for a Christianity in America that invites, celebrates, and rejoices in the glories of God's world, people, creatures - and even in God's presence in and through all things.
I'll be available by email. So I invite you to contact me if you wish, but above all, to hold myself and all the walkers in your prayers.
Peace & Love,
Brad Wishon
Gentle Shepherd MCC
Phoenix, AZ
I want to share with you what promises to be the start of a wonderful, yet uncertain journey. Tomorrow morning, at the close of an Ecumenical Easter Sunrise Service, I will begin a Walk across the United States with other colleagues. Even as I begin this walk I do not know how everything will turn out. The family challenges I face with Wanda have not yet been satisfactorily addressed. Yet though uncertain, the journey must begin.
I'm walking to help raise the profile of progressive Christians who are fair-minded, inclusive, hopeful and also Christian. I believe it is time that those of us who claim the name of Jesus and also dare to love the earth and environment, who believe science and faith are both paths to truth, who respect other faith traditions and welcome people, like Jesus called us to, as they are, who they are - I believe it is time for us to rise up and reclaim the landscape in this country from those who use the media and airwaves as their own bully-pulpits. I am not a Christian - BUT - not like those Christians. I am a Christian.
I believe there are millions of others like myself for whom most of the so-called "Christian spokespersons" simply do not speak for. I'm walking for them, for those so alienated from Church that they could never believe in a loving, gracious God. I'm walking to reclaim the faith that speaks of love, not division and exclusion. I'm walking, along with others, to fuel the fires of a new great awakening. The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr., Senior Minister of Riverside Church was in Phoenix with us last year, when we began to plan this walk. He said:
"You never know where the next Great Awakening is going to come from. Wherever it happens, I want to be present at the beginning, when the Spirit moves in wonderful ways. I see a spark of what very well may be the next Great Awakening here in Phoenix, Arizona.รข€
I believe this is the start of something amazing. Since the beginning of this year things have really begun to heat up. Several national organizations have signed on to support CrossWalk America (the host of the Walk of which I'm Vice-President). And in our Walk Wherever You Are program, we have churches and people across the US, and now in the UK and Australia, who are walking in celebration of the Three Great Loves (love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self). These great truths are expressed more fully in a document entitled The Phoenix Affirmations.
As we walk, a documentary film maker will be along for the journey. We'll be "blogging" our way across the US through 12 states on our way to Washington, D.C. On the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend there will be one massive party in DC to conclude the Walk, and to start what I believe is a "fire for a Gospel of Love that cannot be sated."
So often, though we share a deep love and abiding respect, we stand at different places when it comes to faith. The reason I've included you here is not an assumption that you agree with me. It is because you matter to me.
So I invite you to visit our website (www.crosswalkamerica.org), review the affirmations, join our email list, donate if you are so moved, but most of all - keep track of our progress. There is an interactive map on the website that tells what locations we'll be in through the 20 weeks of the Walk. You can also research the organization and its work at this site. As a shameless plug, there's even a promotional movie clip on which I share why I'm walking.
I'd like to invite you to also consider joining the PrayerWalker's Club. More than 20 people in my own congregation are part of one such group.
Whatever you do, I implore you over this summer to lift up a voice for love, to raise a standard for a Christianity in America that invites, celebrates, and rejoices in the glories of God's world, people, creatures - and even in God's presence in and through all things.
I'll be available by email. So I invite you to contact me if you wish, but above all, to hold myself and all the walkers in your prayers.
Peace & Love,
Brad Wishon
Gentle Shepherd MCC
Phoenix, AZ
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