I just went to the rally this morning at the Federal Communications Commission that is protesting the exemption of over 300 television programs simply because they are produced by nonprofit organizations and captioning the programs could cause “significant difficulties for these entities.”
Representative Edward J. Markey (MA) said about the recent FCC decisions:
“…there are reports that in the last week the Commission has sent out dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of letters granting waivers to closed captioning obligations. I understand that these exemption requests were filed and considered without public notice and therefore interested parties did not have an adequate mechanism for addressing potential problems or any deficiencies in the requests. The Commission also apparently failed any public notice about the reportedly large volume of approval letters that were granted and mailed out in the last week.
I also understand that several entities seeking exemptions were ultimately willing to comply with the closed captioning obligations and only sought temporary waivers. Netherless, the Commission apparently granted such entities permanent waivers.”
This morning I learned that most of these exemptions were given to religious organizations, most of which likely belong to a Christian denomination. I am flabbergasted; don’t Christians want to spread the gospel to everyone in the world? If that is the case, why would Christian organizations purposely exclude deaf and hard of hearing people from the gospel?
Christian organizations that requested and have been granted exemptions may be abandoning the words of Jesus by excluding deaf people from their programming. According to Matthew 28:16-20, Jesus calls on his followers to:
“…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
“All” includes deaf people does it not?
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I ain’t really surprised at all about how hyprocritical the religious organizations are in many ways.
Those religious organizations always look for the way to avoid paying any $$ in name of God like rallying up the ignorant ones for tax cuts to see the government’s entitlement programs to be wholly gone. So the religious organizations could get people flow back to them for the full control over their lives.
Several religious theme parks refused to pay any kind of entertainment taxes. They usually claim about spreading the words of gospel to people. Megachurches
always make a lot of $$$, ex. Rev. Joel Ostmoh’s multi-million dollars glass complex. Those people are real cheapskate like Dan Synder. LOL!
Why don’t they hire the ASL interpreter like Rev. Jerry Falwell used to have on his evangalical television show in the 70s and 80s? Much cheaper than closed captions! Or the religious organizations could hire their own captioner to issue out the open captions if they want to save a lot of money!
Where is the Almighty God (reverse in the wording of dog) savoring the accessibilty for the deaf people with hunger for gospel words?
The religious organizations hardly hire any deaf people to be employed within those people.
Not all (in fact, far from most) deaf people use ASL. So in admonishing an entire group for being exclusionary, you yourself have commited the sin of exclusion.
True not all deaf people use ASL. However, when it comes to quality interpreters and to avoid continuing shortage of them, I feel it is realistic to expect the highest competency in ASL among interpreters.
Why is that? Once every interpreter reach that level, they’re able to move the continnum of skill, ranging from one of Manually Coded English systems to cued English to ASL. With that in mind, whereever they are sent for an assignment, it will not be a problem for an interpreter to accomodate whether or not a client wants ASL as opposed to interpreters’ skill being limited to one or two areas with no or little skill in ASL.
Because highly skilled ASL interpreters don’t come handy, it is often the ASL population who have to settle with better than nothing interpreters that would benefit other groups.
No argument with you there. But my point was that not all deaf people sign. Therefore, suggesting a sign interpreter in place of captioning is a sad, sad substitution.
I just don’t want to give any room for a misinterpretation or misunderstanding. I want to clarify for the public, who is not familiar :)
Religious organizations and anti-tolerant spiritual guiders are simply considered as “God’s Bullies”!
Sad to say this, it is not my position to judge but many Christians are not genuine Christians. We can’t take their word when they claim to be Christians. Only when we observe how they behave & speak, it would reflect onto us if they are really true Christians or not! Beware of the sheep in wolf’s clothing! Nothing wrong to challenge people who profess to be Christians when their attitudes aren’t Christianlike. They need to be shaken up when we tell them that they don’t appear to be Christianlike. That way, they can be humbled to the point where they would re-examine their relationship with God!
Deaf Christian,
Let’s assume that a Christian nonprofit organization states that it does not intend to make money from the television programming, it simply wants to spread the gospel. Then they claim that it would be difficult to raise money for captioning because they already raise hundreds of dollars for the programming itself.
Should they still caption their programming anyway because of Jesus’ message that all should be taught the gospel? I assume that Jesus is a higher calling than the FCC?
Well, even if Christian organizations may claim that they would get no profits from the programming, it would still be worthwhile to have their programs captioned. If not, deaf people can accuse them of not being true Christians & use excuses of not learning about Christianity! I am sure Christians would not want to alienate or offend deaf people at any degree. So to show them unconditional love, it would be a wise decision to caption programs. If they are willing to have programs in Spanish or other languages, ASL should not be exempt! After all, Christians should not worry about finances but let God take care of that!
In addition to my earlier comment, it is possible that many Christians organizations would not bother capitioning their programs since many of them would try to start a deaf ministry earlier but to no success. Some churches would hire an interpreter to interpret on a regular basis but with time passing, they would drop the interpreter since the attendance of deaf people would likely amount to zero. They may have gotten the impression that many deaf people are not interested in becoming regular members or whatever!
I totally understand that many deaf people would not feel comfortable going to hearing churches with only interpreters. Not only that but they may not like it when they discover that the deaf ministries would be led by hearing people such as interpreters or parents of deaf kids. To them, it would feel too hearing-oriented for their taste! That is why very few hearing churches would have successful deaf ministries that would last for many years with strong leadership.
No question about it, many deaf people generally would prefer going to a deaf church only where there is a deaf pastor. But of course, there are not enough deaf churches around for every single religion available out there! Let’s not forget that some deaf churches may be breeding grounds for gossip & slander! So some deafies would just leave & go to hearing churches to remain annoymous & avoid trouble!
The bottom line is that Christianity is not very well-acknowledged in many deaf communities. Too many deafies would be too scared to learn about God due to language barriers or misconceptions. We need to change that by having more deaf pastors where their visibility would be well-known all over in deaf communities! Of course, Christian colleges need to prove accomodations for deaf students to train to become pastors. Deaf culture needs a lot more great deaf leaders. The same applies to having many great deaf Christian leaders as there is a great shortage of deaf pastors nowadays. Many of them are already burned out with severely limited resources! Instead of having some Christian programs captioned, what about having a Christian program completely in ASL?
Just wondered what christian relgion has to do with the caption. Caption is everyone to read and to learn the literacy program in order to improve English skills. Not literal, most deaf and hard of hearing individuals have strong visual to watch TV with closed-caption. It is imperative to access equally with the hearing population. It’s not fair for us to be excluded from the major population to not allow us to watch TV with closed-caption. Why didn’t they respect us to be equal to watch whatever we want? It is our freedom in our country without any oppression. Have FCC listened to the protestors and rescind the waiver yet?
Umm. Maybe these Christian shows don’t think they need captioning.
They’re just waiting for the prayers that people have done over me and other deafies, “healing our deafness in the name of Jesus,” to work.
lol… yep!
And in the meantime, they all wear glasses.
It’s pretty widely known that 1996, the FCC promised that 100% of programming would be captioned. But some context is necessary to understand the current dispute.
Most of these “religous services” shows are not watched on a regular basis. Typically what happens is that somone is channel surfing, comes across a religious serviced-themed show, maybe hears something about a bible story or whatnot from the sermon or a song that triggers a memory from childhood, perhaps watches a little bit more, and then decides to start going to religious services again at the local church/temple/mosque, etc. That’s really the purpose of these shows.
My gut is that the programmers of the religious services shows feel that captions just don’t “grab” the viewer the way audio does, and that deaf viewers will just keep channel surfing over the religious services shows until they find something interesting to watch. (That’s certainly been true for me! *grin*) So the programmers of the religious services shows view captions as a totally unnecessary and wasted expense.
Everyone’s all for 100% captioning in the abstract. But once you get down to details, getting “only” 80% or 90% captioning is certainly is pretty darn good as well. Especially when we’re talking about stuff that actually gets watched by deaf viewers.
But if people feel very strongly about the 100% captioning goal, I’d certainly encourage them to submit comments to the FCC saying that.
Jfs,
If the show is not captioned, deaf and hard of hearing people will breeze through the show when channel surfing.
How do we know what deaf people watch anyway?
If I understand you correctly, you are making an assumption that deaf people are not interested in religious shows. Why would deaf people not want to watch religious shows? Does hearing loss make one disinterested in religious shows?
If nonprofits and religious groups are allowed to not caption their programs, what next? Perhaps the AARP or the American Heart Association will develop educational programming in the future and they will be protected by the FCC from captioning their programs.
I realize that this is a slippery slope argument but the question must be asked, are we willing to give an inch when the law clearly requires 100% captioning of all new programs?
Shane-
You misunderstood me. I’m saying that NOBODY is interested in these religious shows.
Few (if anyone) “tunes in” just to watch these shows. You’ll never see one of these shows on in a bar or an airport. At least I haven’t.
Rather, the shows almost always pop up on the TV screen as a result of channel surfing. Most people (deaf and hearing) will just skip over these shows until they find something more interesting/entertaining to watch.
But occassionally, during that two-second delay in channel surfing, someone may hear something interesting being said on one of these religous shows that grabs the attention, and decide to watch a little bit, and perhaps decide to go visit his local church that weekend. As I said in my earlier post, that’s really what the programmers of these shows are hoping to accomplish.
Deaf folks typically are not going to have their attention “grabbed” like that through captions while channel surfing. Instead, we will just see a picture (and usually a low-quality picture for that matter) of a minister standing there preaching. Captions just won’t be enough to compel the deaf viewer to “stop” on that channel and watch the show a little bit (or so the theory goes).
I understand the slippery slope argument, but that’s an issue for another blog entry. Right now, all I’m trying to do is provide some context as to why the religious programmers are seeking exemptions from the captioning mandates, and let people decide whether those programmers are really being unreasonable here.
Jfs,
Thanks for the clarification, I understand where you are coming from.
While it may be true that the specific channels that requested for exemption probably have low viewership, I think that the protesters are more concerned about the big-picture impact of the FCC decisions.
Like Rep. Markey said, people are concerned that the FCC made the decisions without public input, that the exemptions are permanent when some of the requests only asked for temporary waivers, and more.
Perhaps if the FCC had worked with both groups to understand and define the line between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” and other issues, to the point where both parties come away satisfied, then we would not see the outrage expressed by the protesters. Unfortunately, it appears that the FCC acted unilaterally when they made the decision to exempt over 300 TV programs.
In any case, the main question of my Blog entry is: regardless of the TV captioning requirements, should small, low-viewership channels comply with a higher authority than the FCC or US Government in disseminating their message to *all*?
Shane–
Are you aware that one of the attorneys with FCC is deaf?
Ironic, isn’t it?
Aquafina,
Yes I am aware of that. I am not sure if the FCC Disability Rights Office has the kind of clout necessary to fix this problem.
Well, religious organizations are exempt from the ADA obligations - meaning they don’t have to make their programs and services accessible for people with disabilities.
I guess it does create an undue financial burden for those Christian organizations to provide accommodations to those who are deaf. I don’t believe it’s intentional for them to exclude them. All for the reason to have more….HWRs!
I would like to comment that the issues of accessibility in the religious world is not limited merely to Christian churches - it is a problem with many religious demoninations, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Paganism. Most religious services simply are not set up to be accessible to Deaf individuals, and even if they are, that access might not be ideal (volunteer “signers,” limited services, ministry by hearing individuals, low number of Deaf within the congregation, etc.)
I myself am ordained Pagan clergy - in another words, I am a Deaf Wiccan Minister. I’ve been practicing the Pagan Path for 25+ years, and I know first-hand how difficult it is to find Pagan covens, temples, gatherings, rituals, etc. that are accessible to Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. When I bring up the issue of providing sign language interpreters for such and the possible need to pay for such services, these Pagan organizations balk. Once again, money (or the lack of it) talks.
While few and far between, there are some television programs that are focused to Paganism, and they are rarely if ever captioned themselves. I am affiliated with a Pagan organization that often creates videos and the like, and none of them have been captioned. I have expressed my concerns regarding this several times, without much success…although lately they have been making a little more of an effort. But when it comes to those television programs which fall under FCC regulations, you can bet this organization and others like it will be applying for those same exemptions as the Christian ones.
The harsh reality is that most religious organizations don’t have a really good grasp on money, and many of them don’t raise a lot of it. For every multimillion dollar organization we hear about, there are many small local organizations (churches, temples, prayer groups, ministries, etc.) struggling just to survive.
Yes, one does have to wonder how they manage to come up with the bucks to produce these programs and get them on the air. But in many cases, such programs are being created by volunteers “borrowing” such equipment from local community stations - I even know of a Deaf group in the New England area that produces such a program (by the way, I don’t even think their program is closed captioned either!)
Yes, it’s a sad thing that the FCC is allowing such exemptions…but my points are:
First of all, accessibility to religious services and programs isn’t exclusively a Christian issue…it’s an accessibility and funding issue found within religious organizations in general.
Secondly, it’s also a Deaf issue…let’s face it - most Deaf people couldn’t care less about the religion or spirituality itself, they go to church more for the social interaction with other Deaf people. I know Deaf people who will attend a Deaf Lutheran church one week, and a Deaf Catholic church the next…just to “see my Deaf friends and get a good lunch in the church hall afterwards.” They couldn’t care less about the sermon itself.
Under such circumstances, why should anyone bother to pay out the bucks to caption these programs if it doesn’t seem to matter to the Deaf who would benefit from such?
interesting. Certainly, it’s not just a Christian issue, although I would contend that, for many reasons, Christians happen to be the most visible in American culture (which is, I’m guessing, why Shane pretty much shoved them front and center in this blog).
Do I sense the sentiment that the view that spirituality is important lacking among deaf people? If so, I find that thought interesting because, as I’m sure you’d agree, THAT’s not just a deaf issue.
I totally understand why you wrote: “Under such circumstances, why should anyone bother to pay out the bucks to caption these programs if it doesn’t seem to matter to the Deaf who would benefit from such?” But then again, that isn’t really the issue protesters have in mind. Like Shane wrote in an earlier comment: “Are we willing to give an inch when the law clearly requires 100% captioning of all new programs?”
On a tangent: Would you happen to be one of the people over at Deaf Pagan Network? Where are you located? Would love to continue a conversation via private e-mail.
Greetings, Allison ~
Thank you for your kind comments. I agree, Christianity is definitely much more visible in American society, so it does make sense that the focus would be on this religion, as it often is. We don’t see much about the practice of other religions in this country, and that is a sad thing, as it does encourage that “one religion” mentality that I feel is wrong.
You make a good point, and I totally agree - Are we and should we be willing to give that inch? Good question. If the law clearly requires 100% captioning of all new programs, should there be any exceptions to that rule? Unfortunately, it is the nature of the beast in American government that many laws are made to be bent, if not broken. Sometimes that can be a good thing…if the law isn’t a good law, then the people should have the right to protest it. On the other hand, if allowing people to break the law is a bad thing, then we should have the right to protest that as well.
Is spirituality lacking amongst the Deaf Community? Hard to say. I was having this very conversation with a CODA interpreter the other day, in which he commented from his own observation as a member of a Deaf family and a professional interpreter, it is his own opinion that Deaf people in general are not very spiritual. I think there may be some truth to that statement, but I also agree that this seems to be a problem in American society in general - both Deaf and Hearing. Spirituality just doesn’t seem to be a big part of our lives any longer, no matter that the “religious right” keeps trying to preach its values at us.
To answer your question…I was formerly Senior Elder for Deaf Pagan Network and very much involved with that organization, but I left it a few years ago and honestly do not know what’s been happening since. What I have heard is that it has pretty much gone downhill in the last one or two years. At the risk of getting bombarded with emails you may contact me at oceanwitch@insightbb.com Thank you!
I enjoyed reading your informative post, thanks! I could be wrong, but I think that the reason why Shane mentioned Christianity is that Christians are widely known for recruiting newcomers. Their philosophy of living also places a huge emphasis on enabling the disabled. I just don’t see other denominations/religions using both approaches to the same extent - probably due to how their religious beliefs play out in accordance to Life. What do you think?
Thank you for your nice comments, Observor. At the risk of turning this into a theological discussion, which I don’t think is what Shane had in mind…I am inclined to agree with you. One of the big differences with the Pagan religion is that we don’t practice the act of proselytization - in another words, we don’t believe in “marketing” our religion or trying to recruit newcomers. We believe people will come to us if and when they are ready. I suspect many non-Christian religions follow this same belief.
So yes, I think your comments are pretty much on target.
I am also Pagan Clergy and have a deaf son. I would love to be able to do ritual in sign but have found a lack of signs for Earth-based religions. Is there a source for this? I’d really hate to have to finger-spell everything.
Dear Peggy ~
As far as I know, there is no book or any official site that focuses on Earth-Based signs. I know that in the past there was a lot of discussion on this topic, but nothing was formally established to provide any resources for such. Most Deaf people practicing Paganism have simply developed their own signs based on their concepts of the vocabulary. As an example, my own sign for “Pagan” is made similar to the sign for “religion” - only with a P handshape coming out from the shoulder rather than an R handshape.
One thing you might be interested in knowing - I have just within the last week established a new blog site called Deaf Pagan Crossroads. The URL for this site is http://www.deafpagan.com
While this site is very new and thus there is not much happening there, it would be a good place for a discussion on the very topic of Pagan Sign Language. I will keep this in mind for a future post on that blog.
Thanks for your inquiry!
If you read the actual FCC Opinion and Order that describes the reasons behind the captioning waivers - it doesn’t appear that the Christian television industry is being hypocritical by not captioning its programming, not being missionaries, etc. If you read the actual order it exempts these two particular shows
- one of which is funded solely by contributions and produced by volunteers - the other is only 30 minutes long and airs only once a week. So they *may* honestly not be able to afford it. (caveat: I have
no idea what it costs to caption a program although I saw that in the Order denying the exemption, the HSN (Home Shopping Network) claimed that it would have to pay $149.00 an hour to caption its live programming)
**Maybe the frustration should not be at the non-profit stations that are claiming that they cannot afford to caption, but should be directed at the FCC and Congress for not providing the non-profit organizations with monies to fund/subsidize the captioning.
Researcher,
A few things…
The question I asked is…by denying access to deaf and hard of hearing people are the Christian TV programmers not complying with Jesus’ call to spread the gospel? The government and Jesus’ call have nothing to do with each other (I hope not).
I believe that the protesters are not happy with the FCC in this situation, not at the individual TV programs. The question I bring up in this Blog entry focuses on the individual TV programs because of their religious beliefs. This question wasn’t raised by the protesters, I am doing that through this Blog.
By being a nonprofit (assuming that they are tax-exempt) the organizations are relieved of the burden to pay taxes to the government in lieu of their service to the community. So, theoretically, spending their tax savings on closed captioning means that the captioning of the shows could be considered TV programs that are subsidized by the government.
One final note, live captioning and captioning pre-recorded programs definitely have different prices.
“Maybe the frustration should not be at the non-profit stations that are claiming that they cannot afford to caption, but should be directed at the FCC and Congress for not providing the non-profit organizations with monies to fund/subsidize the captioning.”
I agree with you. This should be directed at the FCC and Congress. The cost for closed captioning is exorbitant. We’re talking in the range of a million dollars or perhaps more. Churches across the nation are non-profit and therefore, do not fall under this law.
In fact, a colleague of mine regularly interprets for a church of 10,000 attendees and she mentioned that only ONE deaf person showed up last week. And people call these religious organizations a bunch of cheapskates?
“I ain’t really surprised at all about how hypocritical the religious organizations are in many ways.” – Shane Feldman
While Shane’s comment is simply opinionated and clearly not well-researched (he is entitled to express his opinion, of course! *grins*) – I just think he overlooked what churches have done to accommodate the deaf community (or any other communities for that matter). In addition, I agree with Allison when she commented that Shane only targeted Christian organizations on this issue. Hmph!
BAK,
I did not make that comment nor do I have that opinion. RLM said that in his first post in response to my Blog entry.
Oops - I was directing this to RLM (his first comment) and a few others. Thanks for bringing this to my attention! :)
Isnt this captioning issue worthy of a lawsuit?
I guess it isnt… sad but true… football is more important.
” Like Shane wrote in an earlier comment: ‘Are we willing to give an inch when the law clearly requires 100% captioning of all new programs?’”
As I said, I think this is really a subject worthy of an entire new blog entry.
In 1996, the FCC promised 100% television captioning. How important is that promise to the deaf community today?
2006 is a much different world than 1996 was. Today, there’s 900 channels offered by my own cable company (Comcast). DVDs allow me to rent (captioned) television shows the season after they air. The internet provides all types of information/entertainment. TIVO allows us to watched shows that we missed earlier if there’s nothing “good” airing at that moment.
I’ve been involved in captioning advocacy for a while. Captioning movie theaters gets people fired up. Captioning jumbotron videoscreens at sports stadiums gets people fired up. Internet captioning gets people fired up.
100% television captioning– I’m not feeling the excitement. I’m not feeling the “buzz.” At least not today. Part of that is because there’s just so much stuff on television that its impossible to care about everything (in my case, I don’t care about religious programming). Part of it is that we’ve got a lot more entertainment/information options today that’s captioned than we did in 1996.
These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves when we engage in our captioning advocacy.
I agree with you with how we’re now being bombarded with choices- and ten years later, we may have 9000 channels, with only 90% of them captioned. That makes 1000 channels non captioned, and that’s a pretty large number. Unlikely to happen, I know, but the principle still remains the same.
The more growth the TV industries experience, the more vigilant they need to be in staying atop of the law. If we allow the FCC to grant such exemptions like these, we are allowing them to open the doors for *all kinds* of exemptions one, ten, fifty years down the road. While flipping through the channels, I don’t get upset if something happens not to be captioned- but all too many times, I do come across something I *wish* was captioned- and the 100% mandate just makes much more sense for both sides (them in knowing what they’re required to do by law, and us in having full access) than “compromising” on 80-99%.
Hi Shane! First, congratulations on your new career path! Will miss your involvement with the NAD for sure!
I sent an email to the FCC last night basically talking to this very issue, “Where is the separation of Church and the State with the FCC’s recent decision?”. GMTA!
I hope everyone has sent in their letters asap! The more people the FCC hears from, the better they will understand why captioning any and all programs is important to us! We can’t let up, even a little, bombard them with your letters!
Thanks,
Sheri
Myth, separation of church and state is. In the Constitution it is not.
Of an official religion First Amendment only prevents the establishment. Also, of religion it prevents the government from suppressing its citizens’ choice. All, that is!
Shane-
why are you obessing with the christain shows and not other shows like those homemade tv shows that people buy air time and show themselves doing stupid things like riding their bike into a brick wall.
Why dont we talk about Jewish TV shows and their access for deaf people… personally I wonder if this topic has a hidden agenda? are you trying to spark a religous debate and put down people that arent jewish? After all you are a jew.
Who cares what groups or people go for the exemption… what needs to be looked at is the FCC granting these exemptions.
The topic of Christianity was brought up because most of these 300 exemptions involve religious organizations that were granted by FCC.
Christianity can range from Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Christian, Protestant and several more, so we are talking about many religious organizations within Christianity.
While it is possible the Jewish and Muslim religious organizations may have asked for an exemption, I’ll be surprised if most of the 300 are from either Jewish and Muslim. I believe the number of Christian organizations far exceeds the Jewish and Muslim organizations.
I really did make a mockery of ASL interpreters on religious tv shows, because terps on the Jerry Farwell’s “The Old Times” were fun to watch due to their beehive hairdos in the 80s.
Why not have the ASL terps on religious shows! So we could point out the real hyprocrisy of religious people for hiring the ASL terp, who happen to be gay or criminal hirself.
I am puzzled why didn’t the religious tv shows do open captions doing by their own staff - much cheaper or pre-empted captions.
I’m tired of people screaming about religious freedom and freedom of choice. We the deaf, hard of hearing and deaf-blind DO NOT have religious freedom in the same sense as our hearing counterparts. We must pick and chose from what is out there. God forbid you live in a small town in the middle of nowhere…..
I’m in the closed-captioning business. An exemption due to cost can not be justified. Video production is very expensive and adding closed-captions adds very little additional expense. Search the web and you’ll find new low-cost captioning systems; a year ago there were none.