February 2, 2000
Reccord says NAMB will fight
FCC rule on religious broadcasts
___By James Dotson
___SBC North American Mission Board
___ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--The Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board plans to file legal action formally seeking reversal of a recent Federal Communications Commission ruling affecting a number of Christian television stations.
___The ruling placed new limits on the amount of certain types of programming that could be aired by stations operating under a non-commercial educational license.
___Unless the decision is revisited within the next few days, a "Petition for Reconsideration" will be filed with the FCC, said Bob Reccord, NAMB president. If that is not successful, he said, the agency will appeal the ruling in federal court.
___The filing would be on behalf of FamilyNet, a Fort Worth-based NAMB subsidiary that provides Christian television programming to approximately 100 affiliate stations; Channel 38 Christian Television, a FamilyNet affiliate in El Paso that would be affected by the ruling; and several church broadcast ministries that air their services nationally.
___The FCC ruling released Dec. 29 involved Cornerstone Television--an independently owned FamilyNet affiliate operating under a commercial license in suburban Pittsburgh, Pa., that sought to acquire a non-commercial educational license.
___"The deal in Pittsburgh is the first casualty of this misguided FCC decision but will not be the last if it goes unchallenged," Reccord said. "This is not the religious community crying, 'Wolf!' when there is no wolf. This wolf is real, and Cornerstone just experienced its first bite."
___Although the Cornerstone license transfer was approved, the FCC added a new qualification that at least 50 percent of programming must "primarily serve an educational, instructional or cultural purpose" in the station's community.
___The required 50 percent could include some forms of "teaching of matters related to religion," such as "studying religious texts from a historical or literary perspective," according to the FCC ruling. However, it would exclude "programming primarily devoted to religious exhortation, proselytizing or statements of personally-held religious views." Church services "generally will not qualify" under the standard, the ruling stated.
___Cornerstone has since said that because of the new restrictions it will abandon its plans to acquire the license, an effort that had been in process for about three years.
___The plan called for Cornerstone to exchange its existing commercial license in the Pittsburgh suburb of Greensburg with one of two non-commercial educational licenses owned by a public broadcasting station in Pittsburgh. The Greensburg license then would have been sold to a subsidiary of Paxson Communications Corp., a commercial broadcaster. Instead, Cornerstone will continue to broadcast under its current commercial license.
___Randy Singer, NAMB's executive vice president, said the agency respects Cornerstone for its decision. "They have made a bold statement that they will not sacrifice their religious programs even for the substantial financial benefits that the deal provided," he said.
___But many FamilyNet affiliates don't have the choice of operating under a commercial or non-commercial license, he said.
___"To each of them, this ominous ruling threatens their reason for being and dares them to proceed with religious programming at the risk of losing their license. That is precisely the type of government censorship that the First Amendment is designed to prevent."
___Singer, a trial attorney who practiced communications law prior to joining NAMB, called the ruling a "frontal attack" on both religious programs and the religious liberty that undergirds them.
___"The FCC's view is that 'programming primarily devoted to religious exhortation, proselytizing or statements of personally held religious views' can never be educational or cultural so as to qualify as 'generally educational programming,'" Singer said. "But evangelicals view worship services as the highest form of cultural experience and firmly believe that there is no higher form of 'education' than teaching the precepts of God's word."
___The ruling also unconstitutionally singles out religious programs for special scrutiny, Singer said, violating the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment.
___"In a double whammy, it violates the establishment clause by making the FCC the judge and jury on which religious programs are educational and which are not," he said. "The notion of the FCC commissioners reviewing the content of religious programs--and even individual church services--to determine compliance with the FCC's newly announced guidelines should make every Christian shudder."
___The ruling also opens "floodgates of litigation" against many cash-poor Christian stations across the country, Singer said.
___"Every person with a beef about the religious nature of the programming can complain to the FCC and petition for revocation of the license," he said. "The ruling is a dream come true for lawyers, but a nightmare for religious freedom. It can and must be challenged on constitutional grounds."
___Constituents may contact their U.S. representatives and senators by calling the U.S. Capitol at (202) 224-3121 or by getting contact information via the Internet at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.
___The FCC's telephone number at its consumer center is (888) 225-5322; the agency's address is 445 12th St. S.W., Washington, D.C. 20554; and the e-mail address of FCC Chairman William Kennard is bkennard@fcc.gov.
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