Views of KCET’s Airing of Film Remain Divided

While supporters of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony continued to cancel their memberships at public television station KCET on Saturday, a nearly equal number of Southern Californians offered moral and financial support to the station, which Friday night broadcast a short film about a protest by AIDS activists at a Catholic church.

KCET had aired “Stop the Church: Issues and Outrage,” a public affairs program during which the controversial film, “Stop the Church” was screened, over the objections of Mahony. On Thursday, Mahony, head of the Los Angeles archdiocese, said that if the program was shown on Channel 28, he would withdraw financial support from the station, and urged others to do the same.

Mahony said “Stop the Church,” which shows the planning and execution of a demonstration by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, amounted to anti-Catholic bigotry.

According to Barbara Goen, KCET vice president for public information, the station received about 1,100 calls on Saturday. Of those, 480 were from people who opposed the station’s airing of the program and 420 who favored it. The remaining calls were from people who had scheduling questions about the program.

While about 80 people said they were calling to cancel their memberships to the publicly supported station, other viewers pledged donations worth about $4,000, equivalent in value to 100 regular memberships. One viewer walked into the station’s Hollywood studio with a check for $500, Goen said.