Tell Time Warner Cable To Remove Pat Robertson From Your Cable Package
If you’re a Time Warner Cable subscriber in New York, we encourage you to copy & paste this email and send it to their Office of the President:
Subject: Remove CBN From My Cable Package: Hate Speech on 700 Club
To: twc.cotp@twcable.com
cc: Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov, Michael.Copps@fcc.gov, Robert.McDowell@fcc.gov, Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov, Meredith.Baker@fcc.gov
On Wednesday, January 13, 2010, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) aired an episode of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club that I found deeply offensive. In the wake of potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths in Haiti — the most devastating natural catastrophe since the 2004 tsunami — Pat Robertson asserted that the citizens of this impoverished country were being punished by God for making “a pact to the devil.” Here is the entire quote:
“[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, you know, Napoleon the Third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘O.K., it’s a deal.’”
To any sensible person, this amounts to hate speech.
The 700 Club has aired similar assertions in the past, most notably following 9-11 when Jerry Falwell asserted that al-Qaeda’s slaughtering of innocent Americans was God’s wrath:
“The abortionists have got to bear some burden for [9-11] because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
As a Time Warner Cable subscriber, I am writing to request that the CBN be unbundled from my cable package until they agree to stop airing the 700 Club.
I am a firm defender of the First Amendment and free speech, but as a customer of Time Warner Cable I should not have to pay for what I believe constitutes hate speech.
If my request is not addressed, I will have to consider terminating my service.
Sincerely,
INSERT NAME
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And in case you missed it, here’s the video:
give it a subject! please!
Free Speech. Insensitive comment, but he’s allowed to say it none the less. How is this hate speech?
This campaign is a mistake. You have little chance of succeeding and even if you did, The 700 Club would immediately appear on another major cable package, not to mention this TV-like thing called the internet. More importantly, punishing a broadcaster like Time Warner for carrying speech you detest is not only misguided but an attack on speech itself, despite your weak disclaimer to the contrary. Why not grow some balls and oppose the Twisted Televangelist with some forceful argument? Or mock him–it’s fun and seems to be working. Trying to silence guys as powerful as Pat Robertson by boycotting his outlet, though it is large and dumb and corporate, is to join the side that would gladly suppress the free speech of political minorities, who are protected by the same rights that the Reverend Robertson abuses. That’s the deal in this country, otherwise known as The First Amendment.
@md: agreed insensitive comment, but also ENTIRELY baseless. to add in “true story” about the “devil pact” with the Haitians in the early 19th century?
it may not even be intentionally hateful, but it most certainly is a) inaccurate and b) irrelevant.
this is not about a sunday morning sermon – this is about a tragedy. don’t let this man’s hateful and xenophonbic parables keep anyone from giving what they can to help rebuild a country that is in such a horrible situation now.
Are you really that concerned about what some old irrelevant geezer said about A Thing? If you’re that easily offended, don’t go on YouTube and read the comments.
Furthermore, what does this accomplish? Besides being able to say “Heh, yep. I did that” in the extraordinarily unlikely event this leads to him going off the air. Yes sometimes Christians on Television can say shocking things, but that’s a right that they have.
I’ll pray for you (just joshin’).
freewilliamsburg? as always, totally hypocritical blog
A lot of people here don’t seem to get what free speech means.
No one is arguing against Pat Robertson’s right to free speech. He can say whatever he likes, without fear of government reprisal, physical harm, or imprisonment.
What free speech does not, and has never, meant, is that your words carry no penalty. If private individuals choose to boycott or protest because of your words, that is them exercising THEIR free speech.
They are perfectly in the right asking a provider like this that THEIR money not go to him. That’s one of the beauties of private enterprise right there.