Ron Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan, proudly touts his atheist credentials in a TV ad for the
Freedom From Religion Foundation.
"I'm Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist, and I'm alarmed by the intrusions of religion into our secular government," Reagan says in the 30-second ad. "That's why I'm asking you to support the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation's largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics, working to keep state and church separate, just like our Founding Fathers intended."
He ends the ad with a wry smile, saying, "Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell."
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Reagan recorded the ad a year ago, and the FFRF debuted it on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" on May 22.
Since then, the FFRF has had trouble finding national broadcasts willing to air the ad, Annie Laurie Gaylor, the Madison, Wisconsin-based group's co-president, told Newsmax on Tuesday.
It can be seen this week on CNN and has been airing on "Daily Show" morning reruns for months. The ad will air on "Daily Show" afternoon reruns beginning in April.
Gaylor said the broadcast networks ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox all have declined to run the ad, so it has aired instead locally in metropolitan markets. The NBC ban included the cable network MSNBC.
Gaylor said she has not approached Fox News Channel, but did try to air the commercial on the last episode of the revamped "Cosmos" on Fox broadcast network and was rebuffed.
"We believe in free speech, but in this climate even paid speech by unbelievers is often censored," Gaylor said.
NBC did agree to air the ad if Reagan's closing line about not being afraid of burning in hell were removed.
"I said, 'Well, that's the punchline. That's funny,'" Gaylor said.
She said she is troubled by "scaredy-cat religionists" running the networks who think believers can't tolerate irreverence.
"If somebody doesn't believe in hell, you can't even say that on the air?" she said. "To run into this kind of censorship, I am an unbeliever, but I find this unbelievable."
Former President Reagan did not share his son's views on religion, once noting, "without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience."
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Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Julia Sweeney also recorded a 60-second ad for the group focused on the fight by conservatives to allow religious exemptions for employers offering health care coverage. The ad focused on Catholic bishops' efforts to allow employers not to cover some forms of contraception.
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