SHOCK: ABC Positively Portrays Scripture Reading
On Christmas Eve 1968, after successfully becoming the first men to orbit the moon, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the book of Genesis. According to Wikipedia, at the time, it was the most-watched tv broadcast ever.
American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray O'Hair sued NASA over the reading and it was because of this lawsuit (which ultimately failed before the Supreme Court) that Buzz Aldrin was asked not to recite Scripture on the air when he received Communion after stepping on the moon.
So imagine my surprise when ABC aired a beautiful recreation of the Apollo 8 Genesis reading in the episode titled "The Dark Side" of the tv show The Astronaut Wives Club:
...back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you:
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth, and the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light, and it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light "Day" and the darkness, He called "Night." And the evening and the morning were the first day.
But before you get too excited about this positive portrayal of religion on ABC, you should know that the network tried to make a priest look bad for being all judgmental about a child conceived in a polyamorous relationship in a show it aired in the very next hour.
