As you may have heard, the United Church of Christ has teamed up with Media Matters to create the Accessible Airwaves campaign to combat the religious right-wing slant on television. Specifically, the UUC points to how conservative religious leaders are invited to Sunday morning talk shows, but moderates and liberals are not.

Why do James Dobson, Franklin Graham, Al Moehler [sic], Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell warrant seemingly endless coverage when ministries of the United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, among others, rarely receive a single mention?

But it's not just talk shows. The sensationalist nature of the mainstream media means that extremists always get more than their share of news coverage. Take Fred Phelps, for example, whose theology and politics are even more extreme than the rest of the Religious Right. His Westboro Baptist Church has less than 200 members; all the less reason to pay him any heed.

During and after Hurricane Katrina it was not hard to find someone blaming the natural disaster on homosexuals, abortion clinics or even *gasp* gambling. In the subsequent months when religion was mentioned in conjunction with the aftermath, it was how religious organizations were asking for compensation for their charity. Meanwhile, a host of clergy felt uncomfortable that the government offered religious institutions money. The only news show I'm aware of that included this perspective was only PBS' Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Once again, public television proves superior to its commercial counterpart.

Street Prophets' Pastordan summed it up well:

That's a real filter, and it doesn't just hurt faithful progressives. It hurts our churches, temples and mosques as well, by buying into the spin that conservative activists – who can give great soundbite on politics – represent the true face of faith in America. For that matter, it hurts all denominations, who are usually more interested in doing good than playing political footsie with the Republican party.

I hope that this campaign is effective. The only way it can be effective is if the UCC is ecumenical about it. I hope the UCC can keep this campaign seperate from it's recent ad campaign and that other religious groups can join in, Christian and non-Christian.