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Show EQUAL TIME RULE BECOMING AN EFFECTIVE MUZZLE When the Federal Communications Commission created the Fairness Doctrine Doc-trine to ensure that all sides of a controversy were guaranteed access to the air waves, little did they know that they were creating a Frankenstein. A provision of that doctrine, the equal time rule, is actually silencing many more voices than it is airing. That is happening because producers are unwilling to air one side of an issue because they know that such programming pro-gramming would mean that they would have to donate free time for the opposing view. National Review reports that a Texas evangelist, James Robison, is the latest victim of that reasoning. Robison's weekly show on a Dallas station , repeatedly included homosexuality among the sins condemned by the Bible, along with murder, drunkenness and adultery. This led local homosexual organizations to complain that they were being "attacked" and to demand, under the Fairness Doctrine, equal time. The station finally got fed up with all the clamor and abruptly decided to cancel Robison's show in order to avoid having to donate time for homosexual groups to argue their case, said the magazine. As if that weren't bad enough, Robison's hour-long special, a documentary documen-tary called "End of an Outrage," was rejected by 16 stations around the country (about 60 accepted). Although reasons why the 16 refused to air the show were many, one can assume that the Fairness Doctrine's equal time provision was at the top of all lists. Mike Huckabee, a spokesman for Robison's organization, said that most of the excuses claimed that the show was too violent or too controversial. The "funniest" one, according to Huckabee, came from a Washington, D C. station official: "He said it might get litigation from child abusers and pornographers." |