Cradle of Liberty?
FCC, the F-Word and Irony
By Maurine Proctor

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Cradle of Liberty?

Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and friends may be surprised at what has become of Philadelphia. In a 16 to 1 vote last Thursday, the City Council decided to eject the Boy Scouts from a headquarters building they’ve been using since 1928 and on which they had a contract “in perpetuity.”

The issue? You know it. The Boy Scouts must affirm they will not discriminate against openly gay people or pay fair market rent on the city-owned land on which their building is located.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts have the right to determine their own membership standards, but that hasn’t stopped public schools and cities, sometimes following ACLU lawsuits, from cutting off their long-standing relationships with the Boy Scouts.

These decisions usually rest on two claims exemplified in the Scout oath itself:

"On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight."

Therefore, governments claim 1) that when the Scouts partner with the local government their exclusion of atheists is a violation of the “separation of Church and state,” which is not a phrase found anywhere in the Constitution. or 2) the exclusion of homosexuals.

It’s a sad day when Scouts who pick up litter, do food drives, volunteer in homeless shelters and do Eagle Projects that make a difference in communities are discouraged from their ends, and instead alternate lifestyles are promoted.

FCC, the F-word, and Ironies

Our judicial champions of degrading the culture are at it again. A U.S. appeals court in New York struck down the FCC’s rulings on the ban against the S- and F-words, which according to USA Today “instantly spawns a somewhat more relaxed climate for the big TV networks which have complained of a chilled atmosphere since the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show.

The three-judge panel's ruling "will allow Hollywood to be able to say anything they want anytime they want," said Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin. "I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that (the S- and F-words) are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience."

Fox gave this statement in response to the ruling: "Viewers should be allowed to determine for themselves and their families, through the many parental control technologies available, what is appropriate viewing for their home."

So what we are to take from this, then, is that we can’t expect our children to have a children-friendly atmosphere on television unless we now turn to extra technologies?

Our friend Andrew Rail wrote, “ Does anyone else find it ironic that Fox would issue this statement after 20th Century Fox recently joined seven other studios to file a lawsuit the eventually shut down movie rental companies that use these "parental control technologies" to edit movies to create versions that "viewers... and their families" have determined "is appropriate viewing for their home"?

Martin said the agency will likely appeal the ruling, either to the full appeals court or the Supreme Court.