Have Baptist churches in Ireland found a loophole in broadcasting legislation?
By
Blink and you might miss it, but RTE Television has an ad running at the moment promoting a campaign by a group of Baptist churches in Ireland. The gist of the ad is that there are leaflets being delivered door to door about the “Missing Answer” campaign and that if you don’t get a leaflet to ring a telephone number. It clearly states “Baptist church” in the wording of the ad.
Current legislation does not allow for advertising which “addresses the issue of the merits or otherwise of adhering to any religious faith or belief or of becoming a member of any religion or religious organisation”.
This rule has been used to prevent Veritas (a commercial venture by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference) from advertising Christmas gifts. The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland stated that the lines “Christmas: aren’t we forgetting something?” and “Why not give a gift that means more?” were in breach of legislation last year.
The rules on religious advertising are in the process of being relaxed somewhat. Eamon Ryan says that “Advertising shouldn’t be used for promoting a particular religion or as an agent for recruitment.”
It’s very odd that this ad for Baptist churches has got around the rules and is currently running on RTE TV. Is it because the premise of the ad is about the delivery of leaflets? Or maybe since this is broadcast on RTE it doesn’t come within the remit of the legislation?
10 Comments
April 13th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Well the Angelus still runs at 6 every evening and mass every Sunday, why not?
April 13th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Ah well now, that’s an ecumenical matter and totally different to ads running in contravention of the law.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Seems to me that RTE appear to be appeasing “other” religions to make up for the Angelus and Mass etc.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:49 am
They’d hardly do that – it’s not only mass on a Sunday though – they do have services for other denominations too
April 15th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Just saw the ad on the box. Wondering if I can ring them and tell them not to bother to drop it into my house? What a waste of paper! That said religion is a lifestyle choice similar to where you shop, which car you drive, where you holiday. All of these things can be advertised on television so why not?
E
April 15th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I wouldn’t subscribe to the notion that religion is a lifestyle choice, that belittles the firmly held beliefs of many in this country. But this post is really about how the current regulations were bypassed – so my interest is to see where it goes from here – the BCI are investigating at the moment.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Firmly held beliefs I have no problem with. It’s the not-so firmly held ones that create the hypocritical situation where religions are not allowed to advertise on the television but there are few schools or hospitals that you can go to in this country where religions aren’t involved. I wonder did the religious say, “Who cares about the telly, we’ll get ‘em in the classrooms/ at birth/ at death/ at life’s crisis points?”
I get your point though and I am as curious as you are to find out what’s going on. I will be watching with interest!
April 16th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
You have taken material from http://www.missinganswer.org and posted it on your website. You will have noticed “All information on this site is Copyright © Missing Answer”. It seems rather odd that you put up a webpage questioning the legality of the Missing Answer ad when you are clearly breaking the copyright of Missing Answer.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
@Pastor Smith – I have changed the graphic as per your request. As mentioned in my email, I quite often do screen captures to illustrate a blog post. I didn’t think there would be a problem with my doing so in this case but all is now rectified.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I didn’t see the original material, but Pastor Smith is presumably aware that Irish copyright law allows “fair dealing”. Materials can be reproduced for the purposes of criticism, so long as the attribution is clearly stated, and the materials reproduced are sufficient and required.
I missed the advert, but I did receive one of their leaflets (presumably from Smith’s Calvary Baptist Biblical inerrancy bunch). There may well be a missing answer, but I doubt the answer is found by pulling ideas our of your arse and then fishing for scriptural support.