Friday, 31 December 2010

What is the BBC playing at wheeling out loony Christians for comment on the News at Six


Mouse is writing this on his phone, so apologies for the lack of links.

Twitter has been buzzing with Christians dismayed that the BBC allowed Stephen Green of Christian Voice to comment on the Elton John surragacy story in the flagship news at six. The problem is that Green is an embarrassment for most Christians, and very much part of a tiny hardcore in the hard Christian right wing, so hardly a man to present a mainstream Christian perspective.

Green shot to fame campaigning against Jerry Springer the Opera, and took BBC Director General to court seeking a private prosecution for blasphemy over the issue. He lost and had massive costs awarded against him.

He also featured in a Dispatches program about the religious right.

Bartholomew's Notes and MediaWatchWatch have extensive coverage of Green's views, including his endorsement of Uganda's proposed law to enforce execution as punishment for homosexuality.

So surely the BBC know about this man.

What on earth were they playing at?

Mouse was less surprised to the Express quoting him as "outraged" by the BBC's Nativity, universally adored by by Christian bloggers and tweeters. He managed to take offence at it before it had been broadcast. Mouse expects the BBC to have rather higher standards than The Express, however.

It is interesting that some have described this as anti-gay by the BBC, and others as anti-Christian. Mouse reckons it was actually just a very bad editorial decision born of ignorance of Christianity.

Links:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/12/29/exclusive-why-did-bbc-call-on-christian-who-supports-execution-of-gays-to-comment-on-sir-eltons-baby/

http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/stephen-green-calls-for-gays-and-adulterers-to-be-executed/

http://www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk/?s=green

http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/


Posted by The Church Mouse at 11:03

2 comments:

  1. I venture to suggest that this is born of the strange idea of balance, which means that somewhere there is an opposite view, and it must be given airtime, whether invalid, or irrational or held by miniscule numbers of people.

    There are people willing to speak against surrogacy in general, surrogacy for gay couples in particular, parenthood for the elderly – Elton will most likely be 80 before this child leaves school – and there are valid and rational questions to be raised about all those issues.

    However, no-one with any sense of what makes a valid or rational case will consider that a curmudgeonly response to the delight of a national treasure would think this a helpful or constructive or engaging way to make their point.

    Therefore the "balance" gets provided by a mix of some poor BBC editorial judgement and policy, and the self-promoting stupidity of Green's brand of fundamentalism.

    ReplyDelete

  2. It's about the same standard as their courting rent-a-quote from the National Secular Society.

    ReplyDelete

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