Lack of terrorism and the Christian Right's fear

[Goofball]

The portion of the video I'm referring to starts about 1:45 into the clip. Apparently some on the right are not only outraged when actual jihadism isn't labeled as such in bright red letters and neon signs, but would also like to see a healthy dose of jihadism labeling even if it isn't there.

http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow?videoPackage=98814

[Lemur]

For United States residents, this is the link (http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-december-13-2011-lawrence-lessig).

[Crazed Rabbit]

Wow the FFA (?) are morons.

On the other side, apparently Lowes stopped advertising during the show, since they must be afraid of even lukewarm 'controversy'. And then a Michigan state senator wants "legislative remedies (http://volokh.com/2011/12/14/state-senator-said-he-would-consider-legislative-action-if-lowes-doesnt-apologize-to-muslims-and-reinstate-its-ads-on-all-american-muslim/)" if Lowes doesn't apologize.



It seems to me that every company has the First Amendment right to disassociate itself from TV programs, newspapers, magazines, and the like that it finds objectionable. To be sure, the First Amendment has been held to apply less strongly to commercial advertising than to other speech, and in particular the Court has held that the government may outlaw ads that state a discriminatory preference for prospective employees or, presumably, customers; see Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Comm’n on Human Relations (1973), which the Court has also cited favorably since then. Ragin v. New York Times Co. (2d Cir. 1991) has also held that the Fair Housing Act may impose liability for housing advertising campaigns that don’t include any black models because of “a race-conscious decision” on the advertisers’ part, though the Supreme Court hasn’t spoken to the question. But I take it that there’s no claim here that Lowe’s is trying to deliberately chase away Muslim customers (as opposed to in the real estate context, where it is more plausible that some advertisers might have consciously wanted to have fewer blacks moving into their developments).

Rather, the claim is that Lowe’s is refusing to advertise on a program that sends a positive message about Islam in America. And that decision not to support a particular ideological message — whether motivated by Lowe’s management’s disagreement with the message, or just a decision that this message is too controversial for Lowe’s to endorse — strikes me as part of Lowe’s First Amendment prerogatives. And of course the analysis would be the same if an advertisers wanted not to advertise on a pro-Scientology program, or on a pro-atheism program (think a militantly anti-religious and advertiser-supported version of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit), or on an evangelical Christian broadcasting network. Likewise, some jurisdictions ban discrimination in places of public accommodation, including stores, based on political affiliation; but advertisers have the right to refuse to advertise in pro-Republican or pro-Democrat or pro-Communist or pro-Nazi magazines.

This reflects, I think, the advertiser’s right to be free from associating with, and from funding, political, religious, and ideological messages, which strikes me as a matter that is entitled to full First Amendment protection rather than just the more limited protection offered to commercial speech. Note that United States v. United Foods, Inc. (2001) held that producers were entitled to refuse to even pay money towards a commercial advertising campaign with which the producers’ names weren’t even associated. It strikes me as even more clearly true that producers are entitled to refuse to pay money towards funding an entertainment program with an ideological message, especially when the producers’ names would be associated with the program.
...
By the way, note the takeaway practical lesson for businesses, for better or worse: The smart move for advertisers is not to advertise in the first place on programs that might prove politically or religiously controversial, especially if the programs are likely to have relatively small audiences. The decision not to advertise can be made for many possible reasons, and it will be hard to create much outrage about such a decision, even if the suspicion is that the advertiser doesn’t want to be associated with (say) a show that depicts Muslims as normal Americans. But once the advertisement is bought, the decision to advertise is visible, and may alienate one segment of customers. And any decision to pull the advertisement will also be visible, and will thus alienate another segment of customers. So an economically rational advertiser will likely choose not even to experiment with advertising on programs such as this, since any experiment will be very expensive to back out of. Thanks to Ed Grinberg for the pointer.

CR

[Lemur]

I'm going to use this incident to further cement Lemur's Law. (Any organization with the word "family" in its title is psychotic.)

This should note confused with Lemur's Disease, a terrible affliction that kills thousands yearly.

[Goofball]

Thanks for posting that CR. It's over the top to suggest that companies should be punished for pulling advertizing from shows they finds to be too controversial, and I would never suggest that that should happen. I mean, following that path down its (dare I say it?) slippery slope, would we then start to punish firms who were approached by advertizing sales reps but declined to buy the advertizing in the first place because they objected to the show's content? Silly, and unenforceable. I do think, however, that Lowes has made a bad decision. The negative publicity generated by their actions will be punishment enough.