Want to know what the re-introduction of the Fairness Doctrine (proposed by a number of members of Congress, including two-time presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich) would look like? Probably something like this, as told by the Ottawa Citizen:

The CRTC–the same agency that recently gave two thumbs-up to a homegrown Canadian porn TV network–has nixed two applications for Christian radio stations in the Ottawa area, and that has left some supporters of the religious proposals very unhappy.

Ottawa’s CHRI [Christian radio station] came to a recent hearing of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission with 780 letters of support for a new FM station that would have played traditional Christian music, hymns and classical music targeting an older audience.

Only two broadcast slots were available and neither went to the Christian proposals. Instead, Astral Media Corp. got a spot at 99.7 on the dial, with just 77 letters of support for a soft adult music station aimed at older women.

I don’t know the merits of the other proposals, and I’m not suggesting that the Christians stations should automatically have been approved. The problem is not in their being turned down so much as what lies behind the decision, and the restraints put upon Christian broadcasting. Get a load of this:

Mr. [Robert] du Broy [co-founder of CHRI] knew he would have some trouble with CHRI’s proposal, because the CRTC requires balance in religious broadcasting. Christian music doesn’t have to be offset with, say, Jewish or Muslim music, but Christian talk programs must be countered with discussion about other faiths. Announcers at CHRI find themselves in the bizarre situation of working for a Christian station without being able to talk much about Christianity for fear of triggering the “balance” issue. His proposal for the new station would have included approximately 71 minutes of daily programming concerning other faiths, particularly Judaism. [Emphasis added.]

The CRTC did not respond to Citizen requests for comment, but last year a spokesman said it’s “unlikely that a single-faith station could be balanced” without some programming on other faiths. The spokesman was asked if it was possible to get a licence without programming from other faiths. “I’m not going to respond to that,” he said.

“We are disturbed by the extent of social, cultural, and racial intolerance which is often rooted in religious intolerance,” they cautioned. “One need only look to Bosnia, the Middle East, India, Northern Ireland, South Africa and other world ‘trouble spots’ to observe this phenomenon in its most violent form. Such cultural and racial intolerance is less dramatic and violent, but no less real, in Canada.”

That’s for sure. I’d say religious intolerance is alive and well in Canada, just not in the form that the CRTC thinks it is.

The United States isn’t Canada, of course, and hopefully will avoid falling into the trap of government regulation of free speech for the sake of some kind of politically correct “balance.” But if some people have their way, we’ll not only fall into that trap, we’ll dive headlong into it. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

(Via Five Feet of Fury.)

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