‘Very Controversial’: TV Station Refuses To Air Marriage Equality Ad Featuring Gay GOP Soldier

An NBC affiliated TV station in Tennessee is refusing to air an ad it feels is too “controversial and personal,” despite airing an anti-Obamacare ad. 

“I’m a Republican, I’m a doctor, and I’m a soldier. As a military physician, I take care of other people’s loved ones who are wounded in combat,” says Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld in a new TV ad created specifically for the Tennessee market. “But here at home, I’m fighting a different fight. Because I’m gay, I’m not allowed to marry my partner here in Tennessee where we live. I was able to stand up and put my life on the line for the freedoms that we all enjoy, and yet I don’t have the freedom to marry my partner Judd. Support the freedom to marry, because freedom means freedom for everyone.”

Freedom To Marry, one of the most effective LGBT civil rights groups, launched the ad but finds that it can’t actually get airtime in Tennessee.

Chatanooga-based WRCB, an NBC affiliate, has decided against running the ad.

“It’s just a very controversial and personal issue, and we just choose to not air a commercial on either side of that debate,” WRCB’s president and general manager Tom Tolar told BuzzFeed News. He added, “people probably have really strong opinions on one side or other of the debate. It’s just an emotional debate for many people.”

But is it?

On its website, Freedom To Marry points to a 2013 poll that found “Majorities of Tennesseans (49%) support the legal recognitions of same-sex couples, with 32% supporting marriage and 17% supporting civil unions. 69% of Tennesseans under the age of 30 support the freedom to marry.”

NCRM has learned that WRCB recently accepted an ad for another “controversial issue.”

On the FCC’s website, WRCB filed papers showing it accepted an anti-Obamacare/Medicaid expansion ad from the Koch Brothers’ Americans For Prosperity Tea Party group back in January.

Regardless, is being “controversial” a sufficiently valid reason to refuse to run an ad? Aren’t issue ads inherently controversial?

Buzzfeed’s Dominic Holden reported today that WRCB “had no policy about airing commercials on same-sex marriage until executives received a submission this week.”

Dr. Ehrenfeld told Buzzfeed that while he respects management should run the TV as they see fit, “it seems they just created this policy out of thin air when presented with this ad.”

“I just got back in April from my tour in Afghanistan, where I put my life on the line to fight for our freedom,” Ehrenfeld continued. “I believe so strongly in the right to our freedom, and I was disappointed that this is the position of the TV station, that they are not interested in engaging in an important discussion about those freedoms today.”

NCRM reached out to WRCB’s Tom Tolar by telephone today but were told he was out of the office.

Same-sex marriage in Tennessee will not be decided until the U.S. Supreme Court rules next month.

Here’s the banned video:

 

Image: Screenshot via Freedom to Marry/YouTube