National Religious Broadcasters urged the FCC to reject...

football team name is prohibited over the air. While most public attention has focused on whether the team name Redskins is inherently derogatory and can be categorized as “obscene” or “profane” for broadcasting, “I am alarmed that Professor Banzhaf’s petition went further by declaring the use of this term name to be ‘hate speech,'” NRB President Jerry Johnson said in a letter last week to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (http://bit.ly/ZytSaD). This term has been used recklessly “by some in our nation and other democracies in an attempt to expunge opposing viewpoints from the marketplace of ideas,” he said. The petition would have no impact on religions or religious leaders “who may wish to express strong feelings about homosexuality, homosexual acts, the homosexual lifestyle ... even if some would regard such views as ‘hateful’ views,” provided they didn’t deliberately and repeatedly and unnecessarily use words on the air that most people would regard as hateful toward gays, Banzhaf said. One can express and debate religious or other ideas without repeatedly using words “which are most derogatory if not hateful regarding those one wishes to condemn, no matter how strongly,” he said. The station, which has a sports talk and play-by-play format, is licensed to Red Zebra Broadcasting, controlled by Redskins owner Dan Snyder.