In every California county where Prop 8 passed by more than 50 percent, residents might be seeing one of five different ads GetToKnowUsFirst.org is running. Part of a campaign to tell everyone, "Hey, gays are normal!," the ads intend "to capture the hearts and minds of people who do not understand why marriage is so important to us"; they show gay couples and their kids acting, well, like regular families, which they are. But locals who decided to watch Barack Obama's inauguration yesterday on the television network KABC — an owned-and-operated Disney-run ABC station, and not a regular affiliate — wouldn't have seen any of those ads, because the network refused them. "Too controversial," they insisted.
KABC told Chris Yokogawa, the media buyer at New and Improved Media trying to place GetToKnowUsFirst.org's ads, that "many families will be watching," so it wouldn't be right to show the ad — which featured two black men raising their five children — during Obama's inauguration broadcast. "saThey were firm in their rejection,†Yokogawa says in a release. "We went back and forth a couple of times. I explained that this family is far from controversial." Adds the agency's CEO Keith Fisher: "We usually only see this with risque content, as in a trailer for a movie. If KABC thinks they have to protect the public from this family, something's obviously very wrong over there."
Other networks, meanwhile, had no problem taking the organization's cash in exchange for airing the ad. Only KABC, says GetToKnowUsFirst.org, refused to run it.
KABC's president and general manager is Arnold J. Kleiner. The station lists their phone number as (818) 863-7777.
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The station web site (http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/index) mentions that they cover Orange County, one of the most conservative and anti-gay portions of the state. This commercial probably would not got down well with their audience. By the same token, this is probably an audience that GetToKnowUsFirst.org is trying to reach.
Great ads!
Over the last six years, ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" has given half-million dollar homes to 120 families, all of them heterosexual.
Evidently we're great at decorating — two out gay Uncle Toms work on the program — but don't deserve the big prize.
Is there going to be some kind of protest in Front of the Studio or we going to let them get away with it?
I saw the first one on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Very impressed with the whole set. There can be no justification for KABC's refusal to show families at home. These couples are not asking to marry–they ARE married, it is a legal fact. How can depiction of a legally married couple be considered controversial?
Okay, so let me, uh, get this "straight." These ads were deemed controversial because "many families" would be watching the inauguration?!? Well, pardon me, but where exactly does that leave the innumerable gay families who were watching yesterday's proceedings? I guess KABC must not believe that our families play as large of a role in modern-day america as they actually do. I second Dairy Queen's motion and insist on some manner of protest.
Contact KABC
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/fe.....id=5788340
sample letter I wrote:
I am writing to express my disappointment over your station’s refusal to air the PSAs put on by Get to Know Us First. It is extremely saddening that a news outlet would deem images of happy and health y gay families as “too controversial.†You do a disservice to your viewers, both gay and straight, who have been denied the opportunity to learn about real gay families and the importance of marriage for all families. Your refusal to air these stories contributes to an atmosphere where stereotypes and lies about gay people and their families can be spread with impunity, ultimately costing gay families the rights, recognition and protection that all families deserve.
We must call for a boycott of KABC
David you should update this article with Elizabeth's link, and call for a boycott. What they did is far worse than any El Coyote employee or the Sundance film fest.
Here's what I wrote them:
I was appalled to hear that your station decided to not run an ad depicting the lives of an American family comprised of 2 dads and 5 children. After the passage of prop 8, the LGBT community feels it is vital that the public gets to see exactly who this legislation is affecting. But your station has decided these real families are "too controversial" for people, thus perpetuating the discriminatory second-class status these families must endure. Shame on you, KABC! I will be encouraging people to eschew your station's programming.
Submitting letter of complaint to KABC, thanks Elizabeth for posting the link.
Snickers…
Karma is a bitch, boys!
Gay rights have zero moral standing anyway… after all, when a group that:
openly discriminates,
espouses open racism when slighted (prop 8 aftermath, anyone?)
uses trans people as human shields(Elizabeth Birch testifying before Congress on the Matt Shepard act),
lies to us to get our money and run (HRC speech at SCC),
provides the Americans for Truth website with hate quotes and a strategy for denying us rights(Barney Frank and the 'penis' comments),
and has a 25 year plus history of genocidal lesbian feminists working hard and successfully to deny trans women the most basic of protections (Janice Raymond and her followers on through some really nasty shit over at OurChart)
IMHO, gays deserve to have 'rights' taken away! Gay rights empower trans hate, and hate is wrong.
Remember this the next time you think about giving your hard earned money to a Disney Movie, Amusement Park, Cruise and the many other entities that make up Disney world wide.
Lyssa in the previous post. Your ignorance makes me sad. There is no question that good and bad decisions have and will always been made on both sides of the fence. For example your post oozes spite and hate which makes you part of the problem. Anyone advocating anything less than equal rights, equal love, and equal tolerance, equal respect… is missing the path. If you can't see that equality is the fastest way to harmony, you're missing something. You seem hurt and embittered by many of the things you encounter in life and I hope that someone loves you enough to help you heal you soon.
ABC sucks…this organization is trying to BUY ad space and they won't sell it to them based on it being a commercial about gays….WOW the irony in that, during the inauguration of the first black president. DISCRIMINATION!!!!
The worst part about ABC's Coverage?
Just before the Lesbian and Gay Marching Band in the inauguration parade reached the Dias with Mr. President Obama and his first wife, ABC end their coverage.
Funny dat.
I had turned to my gay Husband about an hour before and said; "any bets ABC and the rest airing coverage will end it just as the gay band comes by." He laughed and said, "Don't be a conspiracy nut." Byt when ABC and FOX ended their coverage with 5 minutes to go in the broadcast nd cut to a 5 minute montage of smiling anonymous people, he stood up, shook his head and mumbled "You were right."
Face it. The American Corporate World relies on mass pregnancy to expand their intergenerational profits. They are caving into boycott groups like AFA specifically because AFA promotes that concept.
The question is, will we be able to escape America like pre-wwII Jewish families did, and avoid the concentration camps that Haliburton has been building around the country for the past 8 years?