Protest Staged Over Homophobic Program Aired During Pride

Close to 100 people picketed outside of WFLA News Channel 8 in Tampa Bay in protest of the station's decision to air "Speechless: Silencing the Christians" on the same day as the St.Petersburg pride parade. The hour-long program, paid for by the American Family Association, is said to have contained hate speech directed against the LGBT community:

"It was a slap in the face of the gay pride movement," R. Zeke Fread, the director of Pride Tampa Bay, said at today's protest. "It was an hourlong attack on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."

Carrie West, president of the GaYBOR District Coalition, said to his knowledge, WFLA was the only station in the Tampa Bay area that ran the program.

"It was very disturbing to a lot of people," West said.

Meanwhile, John Schueler, president of Media General's Florida Communications Group, the company that owns WFLA, defended the station's decision to air the program, stating:

"Our overriding mission is to provide platforms for the broadest points of view and be responsible to the community we serve. We understand that doing so can cause strong disagreement. We screened this program and ran a disclaimer before and after it ran noting that this does not reflect the views of WFLA."

Would someone please inform Mr. Schueler that it is not the views of WFLA that we are concerned about? The insult here stems from the extremely poor decision to air this program at such a sensitive time (or the decision to air this trash at all). Frankly, it is obvious that WFLA simply cared more about making the $35,000 dollars than showing any type of respect to the LGBT community on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. The station is said to have received over one thousand calls and emails protesting this propaganda prior to airing the program, and yet, decided to run it anyway.

Today's protest called for both an apology and the donation of the $35,000 dollars the station received for airing the program to an LGBT-oriented charity.

Here is an excerpt from "Speechless: Silencing the Christians":