Please Stay Tuned

I was watching "Who's Line Is It, Anyway?" on ABC Family channel earlier tonight with my wife. After the end credits, another show came on, but not before the screen went blank, and an ominous message appeared:

"The following broadcast does not represent the views of ABC Family."

Hmm, I thought. What might this be? A show with one of Muhammed's peaceniks doing a step-by-step on turning one's family into walking pipe bombs? Programming on the trials and tribulations of Chippendales strippers? A new reality show shot on location in the Sierra Nevadas, titled "The Donner Party Two"?

Nope. Even worse. A more dire affront:

"The 700 Club."

I kid you not. Am I the only one who finds this strange? Some of this channel's upcoming programming includes The Waterbong and Big Daddy with Adam Sandler, "Gilmore Girls," which basically is one long, yammering feminist gripe session, and a titillating new bit of eye candy called "Falcon Beach," which just as easily could go by the moniker "Who's Boffing Who?" But I'm sure these pose no concerns, as I've never noticed a singling out of this nature for any other show on the station. I'm not a big fan of ABC Family, but I've watched it enough for this incongruity to leap out at me.

So let's sum up: Playing an infantile imbecile in a movie targeting the lowest common denominator of society and having it clapping in its drool is awesome. Check. A movie on how not to raise a child, in which we are educated on the Zen art of public urination, is a delight for the kiddies. Check. PC twaddle straight out of Betty Friedan's book The Subhuman Male doesn't bother us, nosiree. Gotcha. And a place where the sun is hot, the people are wet, and the only squares are the ones not rolling in the sheets with a different buff bod every Saturday night at 9:00 PM EST--8:00 CST--is where all the cool cats are hanging. No problemo.

But give us a show with a Christian take on reality, one with inspirational stories of miracles and people overcoming Herculean obstacles in bettering themselves physically and/or spiritually, in which the dreaded words "Jesus" and "Christ" are uttered outside the sacred confines of profanity, and Houston, We Have A Problem.

You see, those Christians--you know, the ones who founded this great nation and saw to it that freedom wasn't just a pretty concept in a tome of fairy tales--those people are out of their gourds.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.