Thought Theater

CBS's "Schwing-Town" Has AFA All Hot And Bothered genre: Hip-Gnosis

The religious loons never cease to amaze me. Following Froday's premiere of the new CBS show, Swingtown, the American Family Association is leading the charge to get the program banned from local CBS affiliates on the grounds that it violates their broadcast licensing because it doesn't "serve the public interest". The following is the "action alert" issued by AFA.

From AFA Online:

Last night, your local CBS station violated its license obligation to "serve the public interest" by airing one of the most offensive programs ever on broadcast television.
In the opening scene of Swingtown, the storyline sends an airline stewardess home with a pilot for 3-way sex with the pilot's wife.

Your local CBS station also aired these scenes from Swingtown:

· Teenagers smoke marijuana as they drive away from school

· Two young boys get caught looking at p*rnogr*phic magazines by one of the boy's father. His response was, "Don't let your mother catch you with this" and hands the magazine back to the boy.

· At a party in a neighbor's home, one woman continues to ask the host and another guest for "coke" (heroin).

· The host offers Quaaludes to her guest to "loosen her up" for group sex.

· Several party guests are shown smoking marijuana.

· One scene shows an orgy going on in the basement.

· Two married couples have sex together.

Your local CBS station could have chosen to reject the network show. Instead, they aired it in your community, knowing full well, children would likely be watching.

TAKE ACTION

File a complaint with your local CBS station manager. Tell him to refuse to air future episodes of Swingtown on your local station.

Now I realize that AFA and its members are entitled to take whatever action they choose. At the same time, they're also able to turn the channel and forego watching any program they consider inappropriate or inconsistent with their values.

The problem, as I see it, is that many religious people see programs of this nature as a threat. In other words, they some how believe that a television program is going to lead them astray. This situation is much the same as the recent effort to force Marriott Hotels to cease offering pornographic movies to their guests. Truth be told, the only way one would ever know if a hotel offers pornographic movies is to make the effort to find out...and then make the effort to obtain access to it.

Conversely, in all my hotel stays, I've never been compelled to open the Bible that is invariably found in the drawer...nor have I felt tempted to rush out and join a church as a result of its mere presence. You see, my beliefs aren't that vulnerable and I'm not that impressionable or that impulsive. I've never felt the need to launch an action alert to lobby for the removal of all Bibles from all hotel rooms...because I'm not threatened by them. While I find the practice of placing Bibles in all hotel rooms rather presumptive, I have the choice to ignore them...and I do so without a second thought.

The same cannot be said for many religiously motivated individuals. I've long argued that religion serves as a deterrent for many people. As such, fear of their own unseemly thoughts and desires creates the necessity for rigidly constructed religious values. Fear and faith are merged into a barrier to keep the individual from acting out. Hence, the mere availability of pornography in a hotel room or a risque television program has the potential to trigger an act of indulgence for many of these individuals. That also leads them to demand that all of society embrace the restrictions they feel are necessary to maintain their own morality.

A look at the countless fallen ministers provides evidence of this phenomenon. Time and again, the minister who rails against prostitution, homosexuality, or kinky sex is the one eventually found to have been engaging in it. I suspect their own subconscious awareness of their compulsions is a contributing factor in their decision to become a minister or a person of deep faith.

In the end, I think it's sad that so many people live in fear of their own temptations. I'm of the opinion that denial isn't the best means to confront one's thoughts and fantasies. In fact, I think those individuals who face their fears and compulsions are apt to overcome them. Those who attempt to isolate themselves from their temptations are apt to have the greatest attraction to them. If it wasn't the availability of porn in a hotel room or a television program, it might be the length of a skirt or the snugness of a pair of jeans.

Changing society will not eliminate the thoughts these people struggle to suppress...yet it becomes the preferred course of action. It does so for two reasons. One, it is an external action that allows the individual to ignore an internal impulse. Two, it serves to portray the individual as a person of principle and morality to others...even if that is a false construct.

One last point. Swingtown is about the 70's...yet we constantly hear today's religious leaders talk about the ever increasing moral decline...and the coming Rapture. In reality, people have engaged in sexual experimentation, mind altering drug use, and countless other dalliances since the beginning of time. We have done so because it is an integral part of our human nature. The sooner we look at it from that perspective, the sooner we can begin to make informed decisions about the behaviors we engage in. Only then will our values cease to be a contrivance and become what they should be...a carefully considered conscious choice.

Comments

1 On June 9, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Thomas Mc wrote —

Who cares what those FASCISTS think???

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CBS’s new program, Swingtown, has the American Family Association asking its membership to take action to force local affiliates to drop the show. Such efforts are often a misguided attempt to partition the religious individual from his or her carnal c... [Read More]

Tracked on June 7, 2008 1:51 PM

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