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NBC Draws Fire for Book of Daniel

by Allie Martin
December 30, 2005

(AgapePress) - - A pro-family media researcher is blasting NBC for plans to air a controversial series featuring a troubled Episcopal priest and other dysfunctional characters.

The network will air The Book of Daniel on Friday evenings, starting in early January. According to published reports, the weekly show centers around an Episcopal priest named Daniel Webster who talks with a manifestation of Jesus. In addition, the Webster family reportedly includes a 23-year-old homosexual, Republican son; a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer; and an adopted son involved in an improper relationship with the bishop's daughter.

Ed Vitagliano is director of research for the American Family Association. He says the program mocks Christianity.

    
Ed Vitagliano
"While we certainly recognize that Christians do have problems, and they have problems in their families, it seems that Hollywood consistently wants to focus on those types of Christians and those types of ministers -- when the reality is that many, many more are hard-working," Vitagliano says. "They work hard to have good family lives -- just like a lot of people do -- and are faithful to scripture."

According to the AFA spokesman, advertisers who underwrite the program will be monitored -- and that information will be distributed far and wide.

"We will be reviewing this, and we will be letting AFA supporters know exactly what is on this program," he says. "And [we will be] holding advertisers accountable for what appears to be yet one more show that's going to dog the Christian faith."

AFA is calling on TV viewers to send a letter through its website asking NBC affiliates to refuse to air the show. Dr. Don Wildmon, AFA chairman and founder, contends the network's decision to air the series "reflects the anti-Christian bias which exists at the highest levels of the network."
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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(My Note:  We are seeing new LOWS and we will see more. It appears to be fashionable to bash and mock Christianity in any way possible, and television is simply exploring more possibilites in doing just that. As far as I'm concerned, I'm ready to scratch whole networks and stop buying anything from advertisers who pay to get this garbage on the air. I don't watch much television, and I don't have a lot of money to spend, but you can be sure that someone trying to mock CHRIST will never get a penny of what little money I have to spend. Here's what makes sense:  All Christians should read Christian News from sources like Christians Unite, check the information for themselves if they have any doubts, and join with all other Christians in making a statement that we will not tolerate someone mocking CHRIST. It is far past time for us to vote at the polls, vote with our feet, vote with the OFF button, and vote with our pocket books.)

Amen! A complete all out response and refusal to accept this is the only way for us to stop it. Those that do not wish to oppose this are opposing Jesus Christ.

NBC affiliate drops
'anti-Christian' show
Station says decision based
on e-mails, calls from viewers
Posted: January 4, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern

Amid a protest bolstered by a pro-family group, an NBC affiliate has dropped a new drama featuring a troubled, pill-popping Episcopal priest who is the father of a dysfunctional family.

The American Family Association says it hopes other NBC affiliates will join WTWO in Terre Haute, Ind., in its decision to not air "The Book of Daniel."

At the top of its website, the TV station says: "Due to emails and calls from viewers, WTWO will not be airing NBC's The Book of Daniel."

The series debuts Friday night with back-to-back episodes and will air regularly at 9 p.m.

AFA Chairman Donald E. Wildmon said his group, which has an online petition, has been notified by several companies that they have no plans to sponsor the show.

"It appears that NBC will be forced to fill the available ad spots with 'distressed merchandise' ads which are sold at pennies on the dollar of the going rate, and with 'make good' ads which bring in no money to the network," Wildmon said.

NBC affiliates have received hundreds of phone calls protesting the manner in which Christians and Christianity are depicted.

"We are tired of NBC's anti-Christian bigotry," said Wildmon.

"The Book of Daniel," written by a homosexual, is being promoted as the only show on television in which Jesus appears as a recurring character and the only network prime-time drama series with a regular male "gay" character, a 23-year-old Republican son.

Touted as the riskiest show of the year, it includes a wife who relies on mid-day martinis, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, the priest's lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law.

Last summer, the show's writer, Jack Kenny, said at the Television Critics Association's press tour he recognized "there are going to be people who have an issue with a gay man writing about Jesus."

"I'm not making fun of Jesus," he said. "I never want to poke fun at religion or at Jesus. These characters are very spiritual people. They believe in God, they believe in Christ as their savior, and I think that's wonderful."

GOOD! - It looks like the networks might learn something with this. I hope so, but I'm really not very optimistic with what I've seen on network television recently. Prime-time for family viewing appears to be loaded with shows that are not fit for children to view.

Brother Roger, in all reality, if it isn't fit for children to view, why should adult Christians be viewing it? If a Christian wants to watch an hour of television on network TV, the news is about all that is fit to view.

I remember reading recently that Hollywood has learned that G-Rated movies are almost sure to make money. WHY? - Christian families might go see them, and Christian families are the majority of America. It's far past time for Christian families to just hit the off button on the television and forget about Hollywood unless the show is REALLY fit for family viewing.

Love in Christ,
Tom

Isaiah 55:10-11 NASB  "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

I totally agree with you. Sometimes though I wonder about the news even being fit to watch. Much of it is also becoming quite horrid with their mis-information and concentrating on things that are not fit for Christians.

Hello my friends.
I am also sick and tired of this constant Christian bashing, or twisting of Christian reality. Of course there are so called "gay Christians" and all manner of non-Christian works from those who profess to be Christians. These people actually believe that Jesus died on the cross so that any and all Godly or unGodly lifestyle could be sanctified. These people say the same thing over and over to justify any lifestyle or unGodly act - "Jesus is love" and "Jesus condemns no one!" How surprised these people are going to be when Jesus looks them in the eye and says "go away from me! I did not know you!"


I recall a gay bishop on the news attempting to explain away the Biblical verses which strongly condemn homosexuality by saying that when those verses were written there was no homosexuality! and the verses were wirtten in the context wherein that "action" or "lifestyle" would have been unforgivable, but in modern times, Jesus would have sanctioned any kind of monogamous love relationship!!
It's a great example of just how weak the defence of Christian based homosexuality really is. Those who profess the lifestyle as being acceptable in Christianity, would accept any farfetched reasoning in order to feel safe, or accepted, so that they could continue the practice or the acceptance of unGodly acts. The reality is that those who indulge in homosexual practices unrepentantly, will end up in Hell - that's not my opinion, it's God's warning.

I have blocked out certain channels from our television - any channel which shows porn, or blatant antiChristian lifestyles has been blocked, and cannot be accessed on my television clicker. If you really wanted to get those channels you would have to specifically punch in the number of the channel - there is no way of blocking that, but no one in my house can or will flick through channels useing the clicker, and inadvertantly come across those channels.

I was listening to a radio program the other night, and the host has professed to being a Catholic in the past. His guest on this particular night was an Eastern Mystic, and he stated that the general population of the world are very close to attaining "Universal conscienceness" and as soon as Christianity was finally obliterated from the conscienceness this U>C. would occur. He went on to thoroughly condemn Christianity as the core source for all the evil in the world's past and present history, and strongly professed that Christianity was close to being wiped out!
The host of the radio show actually seemed to be encouraging such a reality by expressing that it wasn't going to happen soon enough! His guest went onto give his psychic impressions of future events.

It really angered me. If this clown had have said such things about Muslims, there would have been such a backlash that the host would most likely have openly condemned the guest and apologised to the Muslim world on air.

This is exactly what Jesus warned would happen in the end times my friends, so we had better get ready for more of the same.

John

Brother John you are absolutely right you hit the bullseye.

Amen Brother John.


In fact this has actually already happened on at least one TV talk show and several radio talk shows that I know of.

Yes Brother Pr, even a Christian Networks, that is really upsetting. I for one am turning up that 'prayer knob'.

There is a petition in the orginal thread, I started back in December. New NBC Drama Show Mocks Christianty (http://forums.christiansunite.com/index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=9504)

Thanks brother, signed it. I have also sent off an email to the local station here and will be writing them a snail mail letter also.

I'll be honest brothers. While I do not appreciate the mocking of Christ anymore than you, it gives me joy to know that it is occuring, because it is a sign of the times. We are plunging headlong toward the end of this age, and it's wonderful to watch prophecy being fulfilled, horrid as some of the events themselves may be.

Hello Bronzesnake,

Brother John, it's great to see another post from you, and I really hope that means you are much better.

I really like your new signature graphic. It's amazing just how dramatic three words can be "JESUS IS KING!!", and those three words speak volumes at a time when JESUS may be coming soon. As LittlePilgrim mentioned, it will be wonderful when that day comes. Until then, we should be about the MASTER'S BUSINESS!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 9:9-10 NASB  The LORD also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, A stronghold in times of trouble;  And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.

'Book of Daniel' Snubbed by 4 Affiliates

NEW YORK, Jan. 6, 2006

(AP) Two more NBC affiliates chose not to air the network's new drama "The Book of Daniel," which features an Episcopal priest with a gay son, the network said Friday.

Four affiliates nationally have rejected the series (set for a two-hour premiere 9 p.m. EST Friday). Conservative Christian groups have campaigned against the series.

KBTV in Beaumont, Texas, and WGBC in Meridian, Miss., were the latest stations to reject the series. Earlier, NBC affiliates KARK in Little Rock, Ark., and WTWO in Terre Haute, Ind., said they wouldn't air it.

NBC has 230 affiliates nationally, and a spokeswoman noted that the four affiliates make up less than 1 percent of NBC's national audience.

The series stars Aidan Quinn as the Rev. Daniel Webster, and depicts him as talking regularly with Jesus Christ.

Phone lines jammed during WSFA's 'The Book of Daniel' call-in

By Kirsten J. Barnes
Montgomery Advertiser




WSFA-TV promised viewers they would be able to call in and share their response to Friday night's two-hour premiere of the controversial NBC series, "The Book of Daniel." But someone jammed the station's telephone lines.

"Somebody called and talked to our news director and said that he had been contacted by a church in town to participate in an activity to jam our phone lines and that's exactly what happened," said WSFA General Manager Hoyt Andres. "We took maybe half a dozen calls. Actually, they took down our entire phone system, not just the lines for people who were commenting about the show."

The phone jam left the 10 staffers prepared to answer the phone lines idle until WSFA launched its back-up plan -- its Web site.

"We set up a forum on our Web site and asked people to comment there," Andres said.

Between 9:58 p.m. and 10:37 p.m., the Web site received more than 300 e-mails.

Although John Giles, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, was opposed to the airing of the show, he said his group was not involved in the jamming of the lines.

"We didn't do anything," said Giles, who watched the show. "I felt that the show is basically making a mockery of a Christian family and shows a dysfunctional family unit."

Virginia Lott, 31, of Wetumpka watched the show with her husband, Brian, and she said she hopes it is not canceled by NBC or removed from WSFA's schedule.

"I thought it was very funny. I appreciated the humor," she said. "It was very much like what real families go through."

She said her husband, a computer programmer, also enjoyed the show.

As for the program being taken off the air, Andres said he would wait to see the ratings on Monday.

"Nielsen (rating service) does overnight ratings, which are a sample from all over the country. We'll get it Monday and we'll see.

"My feeling is all this controversy around it probably generated more interest in some people watching the program than all the people e-mailing and calling us asking us to not to air the show. We'll know on Monday," he said.

The results of an online poll posted prior to the show on Huntsville NBC affiliate WAFF's Web site showed that 82 percent of its respondents said they would not watch the program. After the airing, station officials were unavailable for comment.

Hello Pastor Roger,

I thought about watching the show just for curiosity, but I decided not to because I knew that I would simply get angry. I would simply hope that NBC pays big for airing this filth and thinking that the average American family would tolerate something so outrageous.

So, I will participate in more petitions, email campaigns, boycotts, and any other reasonable method of teaching NBC and advertisers to put this filth where it belongs - THE GARBAGE CAN!

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 John 1:7 NASB  but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

I agree LittlePilgrim, I think 2006 is going to be a year to remember.

More good news. It pays to stand up and say something.

_______________________________


Advertisers drop 'Book of Daniel'
Protests continue against NBC show about 'Christian' family
Posted: January 10, 2006
8:26 p.m. Eastern

Three of the five national advertisers that had commercials run during the debut airing of NBC's controversial "Book of Daniel" will no longer advertise on the program, states the organization leading the protest against the show.

According to American Family Association, just five advertisers ran spots during the program's two-hour premier on Friday night – and at least one of those got bargain-basement rates for the commercials the day before.

"Three of the five companies whose ads placed on the show said they would refrain from future episodes," said a statement from AFA. "Chattem (Gold Bond, Icy Hot), Combe Inc. (Just For Men) and H&R Block said they would no longer advertise on the program."

AFA says the five companies, which also include Mazda and Burlington Coat Factory, came under fire from consumers who believe the content of "Book of Daniel" is "disrespectful to people of the Christian faith."

As WorldNetDaily reported, "The Book of Daniel," written by a homosexual, is being promoted as the only show on television in which Jesus appears as a recurring character and the only network prime-time drama series with a regular male "gay" character, a 23-year-old Republican son. The main character, Daniel Webster, is a troubled, pill-popping Episcopal priest.

Touted as the riskiest show of the year, it includes a wife who relies on mid-day martinis, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, the priest's lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law.

"NBC lost a lot of money on this show that got a dismal 2.7 Nielson rating," said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for AFA. "To mainstream corporate advertisers, this show clearly has leprosy written all over it. The healthy thing to do is avoid it."

After last week's public outcry, two NBC affiliates said they would not air the program, WTWO in Terre Haute, Ind., and KARK in Little Rock, Ark.

Thank you for letting us know Pastor Roger.  :D

Though I wonder, how much longer television is going to keep showing smut.

As long as Christians do nothing about it.

Two more NBC affiliates close the book on Daniel

Two more NBC affiliates chose not to air the network's new drama The Book of Daniel, which features an Episcopal priest with a gay son, the network said Friday. Four affiliates nationally have rejected the series, and conservative Christian groups have campaigned against it.

KBTV in Beaumont, Texas, and WGBC in Meridian, Miss., were the latest stations to reject the series. Earlier, NBC affiliates KARK in Little Rock, Ark., and WTWO in Terre Haute, Ind., said they wouldn't air it. NBC has 230 affiliates nationally, and a spokeswoman noted that the four affiliates make up less than 1% of NBC's national audience. The series stars Aidan Quinn as the Reverend Daniel Webster and depicts him as talking regularly with Jesus Christ.

Channel 4 pulls 'Book of Daniel'


WSMV-Channel 4 pulled the new NBC show The Book of Daniel after the network rejected a Channel 4 request to air it overnight instead of during "family viewing time," WSMV General Manager Elden Hale Jr. said yesterday.

Hale said he made the decision after receiving "thousands" of complaints about the show, which features a pill-popping Episcopal priest with a gay son, a pot-dealing daughter and a philandering bishop father. Viewers objected to it all, Hale said.

"They didn't like the priest saying, 'G..d… him.' They didn't like the fact that there was a 15-year-old girl having sex in the back seat of a car. Many of them didn't like the portrayal of Jesus," Hale said.

NBC issued this statement yesterday: "The Book of Daniel is a quality fictional drama about an Episcopalian priest's family and the contemporary issues with which they must grapple. We're confident that our viewers can appreciate this creative depiction of one American family and will understand it to be an entertaining work of fiction."

Maybe not.

WSMV's general voice mailbox shut down within 20 hours of the airing of the two-hour premiere last Friday because 137 complaint messages jammed the machine, WSMV officials said. There also were complaints via e-mail and regular mail, including letters bearing church letterheads.

Channel 4 received no official complaint from local Episcopal churches or from organized protests, Hale said, adding that it was the quality, not the volume, of the complaints that impressed him.

"Over the years, other shows have generated as much or more reaction, but this wasn't a cut-and-paste reaction where a national group says, 'Please send an e-mail to your station' and every e-mail is the same," Hale said. "These were individually crafted, considered, well-thought, well-reasoned e-mails and phone calls."

The Book of Daniel is set for an eight-episode run that'll be interrupted in February by the Winter Olympics.Despite its third-place finish nationally, the show won its time slots last Friday in the Nashville TV market.

Hale attributes that to the pre-show hype and to Nashville's being a particularly religiously sensitive city. He said he was convinced that ratings would have dropped significantly in the following weeks if the show had stayed on the air.

"It would have rated very poorly. But that's not the reason we chose not to air it," Hale said. "We chose not to air it because we did not think it was appropriate for broadcast television in Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Our viewers told us."

Having said that, Hale said he never before had rejected any network programming and that he wanted to offer the show in an overnight time slot for viewers who wanted to tape or digitally record it, but he said NBC would not agree to that.

NBC wouldn't comment beyond its statement.

Channel 4 will air the hour-long special St. Jude/Fighting for Life at 9 tonight, with future programming for the time slot to be determined later.

WSMV joins a short list of seven NBC affiliates, most of them in the South, that have decided not to air The Book of Daniel. In three of those markets — Little Rock, Ark., Amarillo, Tex., and Terre Haute, Ind. — non-NBC stations have agreed to air The Book of Daniel. It isn't clear if NBC is shopping it to another Nashville station.

More affiliates drop
'Book of Daniel'
'Anti-Christian' show down
to just 1 national advertiser
Posted: January 14, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Two more NBC-TV affiliates have dropped the new series "The Book of Daniel" in response to the protest of viewers who consider it offensive to Christians.

Stations in Nashville, Tenn. and Amarillo, Texas, announced this week they would no longer carry the program, says the American Family Association, which launched a protest campaign last month. Earlier, stations in Terre Haute, Ind.; Tupelo and Meridian, Miss.; Little Rock, Ark.; and Beaumont, Texas, dropped the show. The NBC affiliate in Hattiesburg, Miss., also is considering not airing it.

    

WND MEDIA MATTERS
More affiliates drop
'Book of Daniel'
'Anti-Christian' show down
to just 1 national advertiser
Posted: January 14, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Two more NBC-TV affiliates have dropped the new series "The Book of Daniel" in response to the protest of viewers who consider it offensive to Christians.

Stations in Nashville, Tenn. and Amarillo, Texas, announced this week they would no longer carry the program, says the American Family Association, which launched a protest campaign last month. Earlier, stations in Terre Haute, Ind.; Tupelo and Meridian, Miss.; Little Rock, Ark.; and Beaumont, Texas, dropped the show. The NBC affiliate in Hattiesburg, Miss., also is considering not airing it.

As WorldNetDaily reported, "The Book of Daniel," written by a homosexual, is being promoted as the only show on television in which Jesus appears as a recurring character and the only network prime-time drama series with a regular male "gay" character, a 23-year-old Republican son. The main character, Daniel Webster, is a troubled, pill-popping Episcopal priest.

Touted as the riskiest show of the year, it includes a wife who relies on mid-day martinis, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, the priest's lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law.

Nashville's WSMV-TV General Manager Elden Hale, Jr. said: "Based on a review of the first three episodes and the clearly voiced concerns from our viewers, we have determined that the program 'The Book of Daniel' is not appropriate for broadcast television in this community."

Advertisers have been dropping out, leaving Burlington Coat Factory as the show's only national sponsor.

"Burlington is a buzzard buyer. They absolutely don't care about the content as long as they get it at a nickel on the dollar," said AFA Chairman Donald E. Wildmon. "They would probably sponsor porn if the price is right. NBC is losing about 2 million dollars in advertising revenue each time they air the program."

Wildmon said he expects other affiliates will drop the show and that NBC will pull the plug before all eight episodes air.

"If NBC continues to take that kind of financial hit, it is evident that their anti-Christian bigotry is allowed to override their good business sense," he said.


My Not: If Burlington Coat Factory doesn't pull their support of this show I will not be shopping there again.

Christian protests force series about drug addict priest off air  ;D
Nicholas Wapshott in New York
(Filed: 15/01/2006)

Several American television stations have abruptly cancelled a controversial series after thousands of Christians protested, describing the drama about a drug-addicted Anglican priest as "a slap in the face to God Almighty".

Four stations in the Midwest have refused to broadcast the show because of the protests, and staff at one Arkansas station received death threats after continuing to screen the series.

The Book of Daniel, which opened on the NBC network on January 7, is about a priest in the Episcopal Church, the American wing of the Church of England.

The Reverend Daniel Webster, played by Aidan Quinn, is addicted to prescription pain-killers, his wife drinks too many martinis, his 16-year-old daughter has been arrested for marijuana possession, he has a teenage son who is homosexual, and another who is a sex maniac.

Advance publicity alerted the American Family Association (AFA), a pressure group of three million conservative Christians based in Mississippi.

Without seeing the first episode, AFA leaders contacted their members, urging them to demand that local television affiliates refuse to screen the programme.

"This is an extremely offensive programme to Christians, very sacrilegious," said AFA founder Don Wildmon.

"This show is a slap in the face to God Almighty and to all conservative Christians everywhere," wrote Betty Dixon to her NBC station in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

AFA spokesman Ed Vitagliano said more than 500,000 emails had been sent to NBC via the AFA website complaining that the series was offensive to Christians.

NBC responded: "We're confident that once audiences view this quality drama themselves, they'll appreciate this thought-provoking examination of one American family."

Duane Lammers, the general manager of NBC affiliate WTWO in Terre Blanche, Arkansas, said he received more than 1,000 complaints about The Book of Daniel before he decided to cancel the show. Four other stations, in Texas, Mississippi and Indiana, followed suit.

WB42, a rival station in Terre Blanche which picked up The Book of Daniel after WTWO dropped it, hired extra security when staff received death threats.

 Christian protests force series about drug addict priest off air (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/15/wdaniel15.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/15/ixworld.html)

This article makes it sound as if it has been taken completely off the air. Not yet it hasn't. There are still some that are showing it.

That would be WB, I checked in the TV guide, and NBC isn't carrying it, WB is..

Wow, I find it hard to believe that WB would carry it. I looked here on WB and it doesn't show it.

I guess just a few WB stations are carrying it...

Must be a local thing.

Could be, I know I won't be watching it.

D.C. church's 'Daniel' blog seizes preachable moment

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 16, 2006

"The Book of Daniel," an NBC show about a pill-popping Episcopal priest who works for an adulterous bishop and must contend with a drug-dealing daughter, a boozing wife, a homosexual son and a bisexual sister-in-law, has an unexpected fan -- the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.
    The diocese -- spotting an evangelism opportunity -- has set up a blog. BlogofDaniel.com dissects the show and the Rev. Daniel Webster, its conflicted priest/hero played by Aidan Quinn. A second episode aired Friday night.
    Jim Naughton, the diocese's communications director who created the blog, points out the number of inquiries for the evangelism materials on the diocese's Web site have shot up in the past two weeks. To date, he said, the blog has received 21,000 hits.
    Views on the blog run the gamut. One comment, posted by a man identifying himself as "gay, an atheist and a secular humanist," suggested that churchgoers should be offended.
    "I was turned off by the immorality of the characters (the fact that they are role models of awful behavior, not virtue), offended at the stereotypes about Italians and the mafia, and convinced that Episcopalians (your clergy in particular) have been pretty much slandered," he wrote.
    Another comment, apparently from a Roman Catholic nun, said no network portrayal of religion will be accurate.
    "Anyone expecting sound, orthodox Christian teachings from a prime-time network television show might as well wish for the moon on a plate while they're at it," she said.
    "THIS is going to bring people into the Episcopal Church?" asked another blogger. "Who cooked up this TV show, Monty Python?"
    Several contributers asked who advised Jack Kenny, the show's creator and executive producer.
    In an interview, Mr. Kenny said members from All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., helped him, including the Rev. Susan Russell, an associate who presides over Integrity, the Episcopal Church's homosexual caucus. The Rev. James Farwell, a liturgics professor at General Theological Seminary in New York, also weighed in.
    "This is not a show about religion or the Episcopal Church," the producer said. "It's a show about a fictional family in a fictional parish in a fictional town. The Episcopal Church is a backdrop for this, but it's no more about the Episcopal Church than 'Six Feet Under' is about mortuaries."
    Mr. Kenny, a homosexual who has said he is "in Catholic recovery," says he may join the Episcopal Church partly because his partner of 24 years is a member. Although the partner's family, who are WASPs, were the models for the dysfunctional family in "The Book of Daniel," that didn't tarnish Mr. Kenny's appreciation for Episcopalianism.
 "With all I am learning about it, it seems like my kind of place," he said.
    Episcopal Church headquarters in New York has kept mum about the show. The closest to an official comment came from Kansas Episcopal Bishop Dean Wolfe.
    "I trust no one believes this could be real life in the Episcopal Church," he said in a statement reproduced on BlogofDaniel.com. "In short, 'The Book of Daniel' is a sensationalized version of clergy family life, a sort of 'Desperate Housewives' meets 'Seventh Heaven.' "
    Although Episcopalians have said nothing officially, the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss., is still urging a boycott.
    Seven NBC affiliates are already refusing to show "The Book of Daniel," and ad buying was so low for the premiere that NBC took to running promotions for its upcoming Olympics coverage.
    "Episcopalians ought to be incensed with this new television show," said an editorial posted Thursday on www.afa.net. "Moreover, every Christian denomination ... should be incensed with themselves, incensed at their failure to present to the nation the Gospel that is so desperately needed -- the real one that literally and spiritually raises the dead."

D.C. Church's 'Daniel' blog seizes preachable moment (http://washtimes.com/national/20060116-124015-1203r.htm)