IRVINE : Video by Measure N Group to Be Aired

Reversing its earlier stance, a cable company said Friday that it plans to air a half-hour video next week that was produced by a group seeking to remove gays from Irvine’s civil rights protections.

But members of the Irvine Values Coalition, sponsors of the city’s controversial Measure N on the Nov. 7 ballot, said they still are not satisfied with the arrangements. And they threatened to sue Community Cablevision of Newport Beach, which serves Irvine, if it does not agree to show the group’s video on cable access tonight, as advertised.

“They’re submarining our campaign because they don’t agree with what we’re doing,” charged Christine Shea of the Irvine Values Coalition. The planned airing at 10 p.m. Tuesday is “not acceptable to us,” she said.

The coalition wants to strip from the city’s human rights ordinance that portion banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. The video attacks homosexual rights and life style in sometimes graphic terms, according to cable officials.

The flap over the video started earlier this week when Community Cablevision officials said they would not air the video at all because of concerns over federal regulations governing equal time in political campaigns.

The opposition group seeking to defeat Measure N has not sought cable time, but company officials were concerned that they might have to offer that chance and risk a running battle over equal time if the pro-N program were aired, according to general manager Denise Yaru.

But the firm changed its position and decided to air the program after further consultation with its attorneys.

Yaru asserted that the content of the program influenced the decision to air it at the late hour, but it was not an issue in deciding whether it should be aired at all.

“Some of it I personally found offensive, but that doesn’t mean everyone would, or that it’s obscene by legal standards,” Yaru said. “It’s a real fine line, but we decided not to make an issue of that.”