Now Congress is getting involved. 

Last week I mentioned the NFL’s aversion to churches hosting big-screen football-watching parties.  The idea was that large gatherings of folks in one place to watch the Big Game was detrimental to television ratings, and subsequently had a negative effect on advertising revenue potential based on those ratings. 

Sports bars are exempt from the prohibition of groups watching on televisions larger than 55 inches.  They sell the products of the largest Big Game advertiser.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, introduced a bill that would allow churches to be exempt from the copyright laws governing the public display of Big Game broadcasts.  He remarked, “In a time when our country is divided by war and anxious about a fluctuating economy, these types of events give people a reason to come together in the spirit of camaraderie.”  The House of Representatives is picking up sponsors for a similar bill.

The NFL is reviewing the matter.

Sen. Specter already let it be known he was looking into the “spying” by the New England Patriots.  They apparently videotaped some signals from their opponents, or taped practice sessions, or something, all against NFL rules.  In a maneuver worthy of the Nixon Administration, the tapes were destroyed once in the hands of the NFL.  Sen. Specter is demanding to know why.  He indicated he would lean on the NFL about the church issue as he investigates the scandal of the missing videotapes.

One wonders how life would be different if the Congress of the United States moved as quickly on matters of poverty, social injustice, and war as they are moving on the issue of churches watching football games. 

One wonders how life would be different if the church put up as much of a fuss about poverty, social injustice, and war as we have about the right to have a big party around our large-screen televisions.