Hell Freezes Over

The above strip has apparently prompted quite an uproar at the N&O staff. Here is the text of an editorial in Sunday's paper. It's a fairly long bit, but interesting. It's also available here (but you may need to register, so I've copied it here):

'Boondocks,' N&O stir Christian Right

By TED VADEN, Staff Writer

The News & Observer came under fire last week from the Religious Right. The criticism was understandable, but unfair. And it illustrates how uninformed online crusading, magnified by the power of the Internet, can instantly create negative perceptions of traditional media.

At the center of the flap is the "Boondocks" comic strip, no stranger to controversy. On July 13, The N&O published a panel that lampooned Oprah Winfrey's recent fit over a Paris boutique that barred her from shopping. Aaron McGruder's cartoon had a drawing of Oprah with this label, "To all employees: If this woman shows up, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, LET HER IN!!"

This was a fairly opaque comic panel to those of us who don't closely follow celebrities. But it did stir concern among several readers who contacted The N&O, at the time, to complain about use of the Lord's name in vain. The paper ran a People's Forum letter protesting the language.

Last week, the protests snowballed after a conservative religious leader chose to highlight the issue on a Christian Web site. In his weekly column for AgapePress, the national online newsletter of the American Family Association, the Rev. Mark Creech on Aug. 1 criticized The N&O for running the "Boondocks" strip and called on his readers to write protest letters to the newspaper and its parent company, The McClatchy Co. Creech is executive director of the Christian Action League, a faith-based "family values" lobbying organization based in Raleigh.

The faithful responded: The N&O received about 70 e-mails, and McClatchy a handful, from folks around the country many of whom have never laid eyes on The Old Reliable. Here's an example, from Bob Nickel of Wellington, Kan.: "You have no class and apparently no reverence for the name of Jesus Christ. Think again! When you gratuitously allow the desecration of the noblest name of history, a name that stands for all that is decent and holy, then you reveal your own lack of moral courage and encourage more of the same in society."

Particularly irksome to the protesters was a supposed exchange, described in Creech's column, between an unnamed N&O employee and a Raleigh reader named Bill Grantlin who had called to complain about the strip. Let's quote from the column:
"Unfortunately, however, Grantlin got only resistance from The N&O staff. 'All the other newspapers do this,' a staff member told Grantlin. 'Times are changing, and we are becoming more liberal. The News & Observer has a daily circulation of 160,000 people and we received exactly seven other complaints. And you know what, not one of them was a child,' the staff person added."

Features editor Tommy Goldsmith 'fesses up to being said "staff person." But he says Creech's account of the exchange was inaccurate. Yes, he did talk to Grantlin, Goldsmith says: "I may have told him that times are changing, which is indisputable, but I certainly did not tell him we are becoming more liberal." (Public editor's note: No N&O staffer would be so soft-headed as to say publicly that we're liberal, even if it were true.)

Nor was the quote about children accurate, Goldsmith said: "I told him that we had received limited complaints and that no one had said that any child had been adversely affected by the strip."

I talked to both Grantlin and Creech about the incident. Grantlin says Goldsmith was very polite and courteous in their conversation, but he didn't satisfy Grantlin's request to move "Boondocks" to the opinion pages or elsewhere. (Grantlin also took umbrage at Goldsmith's suggestion that he could find more productive ways to use his time, "like volunteering." I would have taken offense at that too.)

Grantlin said he wasn't trying to stifle freedom of the press and didn't object to The N&O's publication of "Boondocks." But he wants it moved off the comic pages, "where it can be read by any 8-year-old," to the editorial or op-ed pages.

That's not likely to happen, N&O editors say, for a couple of reasons. First, the opinion page folks prize their limited space for exchange of opinions and ideas. "With so many readers' submissions to our editorial and op-ed pages, and with so many topics to consider, we don't think it would be a sensible use of our current space to add a second comic strip (after 'Doonesbury')" says Steve Ford, editor of the editorial page.

Besides, as Executive Editor Melanie Sill observes, would using the Lord's name in vain be any less offensive on the op-ed page than the comics pages?

The other reason: Notwithstanding this orchestrated protest from a remote-controlled following, The N&O's experience is that local readers like "Boondocks" where it is. Last January, after I wrote a column about a particularly controversial run of Boondocks strips, 31 readers responded. Of those, 23 loved "Boondocks," five hated it and three said move it to the opinion pages.

Still, I can understand last week's protests. I too found the "Christ's sake" strip offensive, gratuitously, almost calculatedly so. Knowing our religion-sensitive readership, my instinct would have been to replace that particular "Boondocks" with a golden oldie from the vaults (and explain why).

But last week's angry e-mailers were ill-informed. My concern with Creech's column, as I told him, was not his criticism of the N&O -- that's healthy and welcome -- but that he hadn't checked with Goldsmith or The N&O before publishing his account of the exchange with Grantlin. Creech said he wrote the column because publication of the strip "was just unacceptable. When Christian people just sit back and remain silent, that's wrong in itself."

So is rushing into print without verifying your information.

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Oh my God, stop the presses. I sort of agree with the Religious Right guys (and it gives me the willies to even admit it). Well, actually, when the strip first ran, the use of "Jesus Christ" went right over my head, and I was not offended. But, when the first letter appeared in our Op-Ed page, it made me think. I was raised to believe that taking the Lord's name in vain was a bad word. (Note the second sentence of this paragraph to see that that lesson didn't fully seep in). I think many Christians are taught the same thing, and teach it to their kids. So, thanks, Religious Right, for pointing that out. If it weren't for you, that offense would have passed along without my notice. Similarly, thanks again for pointing out the Janet Jackson nipple flash. I was pretty sure that nothing was really shown until you guys made such a big fuss over it that I realized I NEEDED TO TAKE OFFENSE.

When Sarge beats up Beetle, he usually says something along the lines of "Take that you motherfucking lazy cocksucker!!!" But on the funny pages it comes out something like "Take that you %$*#&%! lazy #%*$**!*!" I don't think for a minute that "motherfucking cocksucker" would make it past the censors. Nor should it.

I imagine "Jesus Christ" and "God Damn" get censored out of a lot of our "family paper" reading. For instance, if a wide reciever said, "Well, I was cutting across the middle, caught the ball, then, GOD DAMN, the free safety just came out of nowhere and leveled me," dollars to donuts the paper would print: "Well, I was cutting across the middle, caught the ball, then ... the free safety just came out of nowhere and leveled me." So yeah, the comics should be held to a similar, if not higher standard.

So, look at that. I just agreed with some Religious Right folks. YIKES!!!! Well, they do step all over their point by

1) More than likely never seeing the actual strip . . . How is it, exactly, that you get offended by something you would never see unless someone pointed it out to you?

2) Sending their complaints to the N&O. As if the Raleigh area paper is the only one in the country publishing this "tawdry trash." Uhm, guys, the Boondocks is in papers throughout the country. Go fry bigger fish.