PFLAG/Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, Innocent

"Homosexuality is an abomination! The practices of these people is appalling," shouts televangelist Rev. Pat Robertson in a clip from his TV program, "The 700 Club."

A dramatization then appears, with a young man running for his life as he's chased by a bunch of thugs shouting, "Queer! Faggot!"

A clip from Rev. Jerry Flawell chimes in, "God hates homosexuality."
The young man is kicked, punched and falls to the ground as the TV audio clips from Falwell continue emphatically, "Many of those people involved with Hitler were satanists, many of them were homosexuals, the two things seem to go together. It is a pathology, it is a sickness."

A far away shot shows the defeated body of the abandoned man on the ground. Then the face of Nancy Rodriguez appears as she painfully says, "My son, Paul, was brutally murdered. The FBI said it was a gay bashing."

Another example includes arch enemy of the gay community, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, saying that gay people are not "innocent" and has a young woman contemplating suicide with a revolver.

Known as Project Open Mind, this planned $1 million paid campaign barely got to see the light of day. PFLAG intended to air it in Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and Tulsa, Okla. but TV stations received threatening letters from Rev. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, saying that the "700 Club" clips were being used without permission and if the stations aired the ads, Robertson would sue them. Further, some stations objected to the ad because they thought it actually appeared to encourage gay bashing.

It aired briefly in Washington DC on Fox affiliate WTTG and local cable. Amazingly, the NBC station KJRH in conservative Tulsa also aired the spot (after 9 p.m., due to its "violence") for one week before it got a second threatening letter and it then ceased airing the ad. The station manager said some viewers misunderstood the ad as well, thinking it actually supported gay-bashing.

Court TV and CNN were approached with the campaign but neither agreed to carry it. CNN flip-flopped about carrying the commercials, agreeing to carry them in late night hours and then backing out altogether.

After such trouble, PFLAG published print advertisements in USA Today, The Houston Chronicle and The Atlanta Constitution, emphasizing cable and local station refusals to carry the campaign. PFLAG even ran into problems with the print ad in the Tulsa World newspaper, which had a policy that prohibited the words "gay, lesbian, homosexual or bisexual" in advertising.
Instead of legally challenging Robertson, CNN and the rest, PFLAG decided to go back and create a new campaign with less difficulty.