After 8,000 people signed a petition asking the Denver Broncos to record an It Gets Better video, the Broncos responded that the team already supports tolerance, acceptance and respect by working with the USA Network’s “Characters Unite” campaign against prejudice and intolerance.
But Cyd Zeigler Jr. of OutSports says the the cable channel’s in-house campaign doesn’t have the ower to save LGBT lives:
The ‘Characters Unite’ campaign is a watered-down, generic statement against prejudice. In the intro video, no one mentions gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people. The CGI words scroll by in the background, but there is no verbal reference. The site’s pledge has no reference to sexual orientation and the campaign’s mission doesn’t mention it. In fact, under the “issues” section of the site it lists various bases for prejudice like religion and gender, but there is no dedicated section for LGBT issues.
Zeigler goes onto say that because a large Christian fan base supports Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow (who once appeared in an ad for the anti-gay group Focus on the Family), the team and their marketing department doesn’t “want to undermine that by actively convincing gay youth to not kill themselves.”