KCET Unworthy of Public Support, Mahony Declares : Television: Cardinal says program to be aired tonight glorifies hate crimes. Film attacks church’s AIDS stand.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, angered at KCET Channel 28’s refusal to pull a controversial film on the church’s response to AIDS, Thursday called on Southern Californians to consider withholding contributions to the public television station.

While Mahony accused the station of surrendering to “blackmail” by gay advocates, KCET officials vowed to air the program as scheduled tonight at 10:30.

The film, “Stop the Church,” chronicles a 1989 demonstration against the church’s stance on AIDS by the activist group ACT UP at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. It features the satirical song “The Vatican Rag” as background music for scenes of Catholic worship and depicts ACT UP members disrupting church services and spilling Communion wafers.

“This absence of responsible leadership at KCET leads me to believe that we should hold the station morally and possibly legally responsible for every future act of terrorism against churches, temples and synagogues,” said Mahony at a press conference, “because KCET has told potential perpetrators of such hate crimes that not only is such activity acceptable, it is worthy of televised documentaries celebrating and glorifying them.”

At his own news conference later in the day, KCET President William Kobin said that he was distressed by Mahony’s actions.

“KCET believes strongly that its viewers deserve the same opportunity as Cardinal Mahony to view this film and make up their own minds regarding this controversy,” Kobin said.

KCET said that it will go ahead with plans to broadcast “Stop the Church” tonight as part of a broader, hourlong documentary about the controversy surrounding the 24-minute film.

The film became the focus of controversy last month when the Public Broadcasting Service, saying the film ridiculed Catholicism, pulled it from its schedule just days before it was to air as part of the documentary series “P.O.V.” (Point of View).

Mahony, head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, accused KCET of succumbing to blackmail from gays and AIDS activists who had threatened to withdraw financial support and jam the station’s phone lines during its August fund-raising drive if the film was not shown. Gay activists accused Mahony of using exactly the same economic tactic to demonstrate his objections.

Mahony said Thursday that since his private efforts to persuade KCET not to air “Stop the Church” had failed, he was going public in a last effort to dissuade the station from showing it.

Although he stopped short of calling for a formal boycott of the publicly funded station, Mahony said that until the station “builds bridges rather than driving wedges between various groups, I do not feel that Channel 28 is worthy of financial support from the people of Southern California and their businesses.”

The Archdiocese purchased advertisements in today’s editions of The Times and the Los Angeles Daily News featuring an open letter from Mahony asking readers to consider withdrawing support from KCET.

Mahony’s actions drew quick and sharp responses from gay activists and free speech advocates.

“This action just further pollutes the atmosphere for free expression in America,” said Mike Hudson, spokesman for the liberal media watchdog group People for the American Way. “It is unfortunate that Cardinal Mahony has followed the tactics of (fundamentalist minister) Donald Wildmon in threatening economic blackmail to restrict television programming.”

KCET is one of three stations nationwide that have aired or planned to air “Stop the Church.” But the Los Angeles station is the only one targeted by church officials for sanctions, according to Archdiocese spokesman Father Gregory Coiro.

In San Francisco, Coiro said, the Archdiocese sent letters to pastors urging them to tell their congregations to write to KQED and urge the station not to air the film, and in Boston, where WGBH aired “Stop the Church” last month, the Archbishop was out of town and did not know about the controversy, Coiro said.

In New York, Cardinal John O’Connor, who is the target of a number of barbs in the film, declined to comment publicly about Mahony’s actions. Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said that he “would not want to hypothesize” about how O’Connor would react if that city’s major PBS station, WNET, decided to run “Stop the Church” or KCET’s documentary about it.

KCET sent a news crew to Mahony’s press conference for inclusion in tonight’s broadcast. KCET’s portion of the program became controversial itself earlier this week. The Archdiocese refused to participate, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation pulled out to protest KCET’s decision not to invite members of ACT UP or “Stop the Church” filmmaker Robert Hilferty to participate. On Wednesday, ACT UP protested in front of the station’s Hollywood studios.

As currently planned, KCET’s program will include a screening of the film, followed by a discussion of issues raised by it, including “television and controversy, First Amendment rights, taste, judgement and censorship,” according to Barbara Goen, vice president for public information at KCET. Participants will include a former Catholic priest who now represents AIDS Project Los Angeles and former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter.

“This is certainly a provocative film which will offend some people,” Kobin said. “But is that a reason for it not to be shown?”

Mahony said that “Stop the Church” should not air even as part of a broader documentary.

“It is a direct affront to everything we believe,” said Mahony, who likened the film to hate crimes against religious groups, including the firebombing of a synagogue in the San Fernando Valley.

He repeated the church’s position that people with AIDS contract the disease through their choice of lifestyle, and said that abstinence was the only way to prevent the disease’s spread.

“There is a certain behavior that spreads AIDS,” Mahony said. “The people who were in the film have a moral code that is a ‘do it yourself’ moral code.”

Filmmaker Hilferty said that it was exactly such a stance on the part of the church that prompted the demonstration at St. Patrick’s, as well as the subsequent film.

“Cardinal Mahony’s statement just serves as proof of the Catholic Church’s political power,” Hilferty said. “My film is not a hate film. It was not intended to ridicule Catholicism or Catholic people.”

Times staff writer Victor Zonana contributed to this report from New York.