Big Screened TV

Idaho now has the nation’s first state law designed to censor public TV programming deemed too controversial for the majority of its viewers.

That’s nothing to brag about, especially in a state that is fighting what it considers to be an unfair perception of intolerance.

To make matters worse, it all happened without any public testimony that supported such an affront to the First Amendment, and it came in response to the airing of a single documentary.

The anti-Idaho Public Television team struck out in the only public hearing on the topic. Nobody who testified criticized the network. So, it retreated to the dugout and attached censorship strings via the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which takes no testimony.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne signed the bill last Monday without comment. He had two bad choices given the way it was packaged: 1) sign the bill, and the state delivers funding for public television bundled with Big Brother; 2) veto the bill, and the money evaporates for a year.

But the governor missed an opportunity to say that forming a programming posse was a heavy-handed overreaction, especially after he and IPTV’s programming director had worked out a compromise that pushed the program, “It’s Elementary,” back to 11 p.m. last fall.

In the documentary, elementary school students are encouraged to air their views on homosexuality. The message is one of tolerance for gays and lesbians.

We hope the state allows its new censorship tool to rust, and instead delivers this simple message the next time someone is offended by a program: Turn the channel.