Boycotts Shunned in Protests of Violence

Religious groups have been advised by an interfaith media-watching magazine to take a variety of “intermediate steps”--well short of boycotts--in response to the depiction of violence and sexual exploitation in movies, television, videos and other entertainment forms.

Media&Values;, a quarterly magazine published in Los Angeles, contains the official summary of the recent National Council of Churches committee report on the proliferation of violence in major media. The recommendations by the council and by Media&Values;, which draws Catholic, Protestant and Jewish support, both emphasize self-education and discussion within religious groups and well-informed contact with professionals in the entertainment industry.

“I consider boycotts to be a legitimate kind of protest, but I agree with the National Council of Churches that it is a last resort and that there are other things that we need to do first,” said Sister Elizabeth Thoman, CHM, executive editor of Media&Values.;

By contrast, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of Tupelo, Miss., a United Methodist minister who has coordinated a series of calls for nationwide boycotts, claims that 1,500 Christian leaders, including 18 United Methodist bishops, have supported a recent call to boycott television programs heavy on sex and violence. Wildmon said that requests to change the “moral content” of programming this fall “was totally ignored by the networks and the advertisers.”

Media&Values;’ most recent issue recommends, among other things, that churches and synagogues hold religious retreats to discuss “why we watch violence” and help parents provide good sex education for children in light of the easily accessible sexual imagery in entertainment media.

Thoman said distinctions should be made between eroticism, which she said “is appropriate within marriage and in a wholesome sexual expression” and sexual exploitation, which she said is offensive.

“Keep your sense of humor. God made us human and sexual persons. Not everything is smut,” the magazine advises.

The United Methodist General Board of Pensions, which controls investment of the largest U.S. Protestant pension fund, has declined again to sell its holdings in companies that do business in South Africa. It did vote, however, to offer ministers the chance to direct their personal contributions to a fund cleared of any connection with such corporations.

The 33-member board, which held its three-day meeting recently in Pasadena, controls net assets that climbed to $1.9 billion this year, a gain of $300 million since Jan. 1, according to a spokesman.

The Methodist Federation for Social Action, an independent advocacy group, asked the board to apply pressure for apartheid reform in South Africa by immediately divesting its holdings in companies dealing with South Africa.

The pensions board, however, reaffirmed its basic decision to follow the guidelines developed by the Rev. Leon Sullivan, a Philadelphia civil rights activist, to have companies with economic ties in South Africa meet fair job practices and push for an end to apartheid, the racial separation codes. The board said last July that it will divest itself of the stock of any corporation that does not sign the Sullivan principles by July, 1987.

About the same time as the Methodist meeting, the United Church of Christ’s two biggest boards (for domestic and world ministries) reversed their long-standing policies and voted in separate meetings to divest themselves of stock in such companies.

The Rev. Charles Stanley Rook, executive vice president of the denomination’s homeland ministries board, acknowledged potential loss of long-term investment income but said strong measures are needed “to send a clear signal” to the South Africans regarding “an evil social system.”