WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Pennsylvania Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, plans to introduce legislation to allow churches to show the Super Bowl on widescreen televisions, just as bars do now.
“There’s absolutely no reason why you ought to be able to have a big screen in a bar but not in a church, where a church is having a social event,” said Specter in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Feb. 3, hours before the National Football League (NFL) championship game.
He was responding to NFL rules that bar churches from holding events featuring TV screens that are larger than 55 inches.
“I think when the NFL has sent out letters to churches saying you can’t have a social event, they have sort of lost touch with their duty of accountability to the American people,” the senator said.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy has said NFL rules protect the network that paid to broadcast the game because large gatherings — in churches or theaters — could erode ratings and affect advertising revenues. “It’s not a church issue; it’s a copyright issue,” he said.
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