They will fire the next shot in a campaign to stop production of a TV reality series starring Amish teenagers.

Weather permitting, the community rally, open to the public, will be held outside, amid the frozen cornfields and dormant greenhouses of Jeff and Sue Frey's 650-acre spread.

The rally is the latest public outcry against the planned reality series. The proposal has met widespread opposition, particularly in Amish and Mennonite communities such as Lancaster and Goshen, Ind.

"The congressman wants to send a signal that he strongly opposes this type of programming and that he views it as nothing but exploitation,'' says Tom Tillet, Pitts' district chief of staff.

Pitts will blast a plan by CBS and its affiliate, UPN, to take Amish youth in their "rumspringa'' (or "running around'') phase before they join the church, house them with five non-Amish peers and film the interaction as "Amish in the City.'' CBS announced the plan last month and the process is underway. An advance UPN crew last week tried to recruit a young Amish woman working at Bird-in-Hand Restaurant.

On Friday morning at 8 o'clock, Pitts will read a statement opposing the TV project provided by Donald Kraybill, who directs Elizabethtown College's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.

Among others attending the rally: state Sens. Gibson Armstrong and Noah Wenger; state Reps. Katie True and Scott Boyd; Wendy Nagle, president of the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau; Tom Baldrige, director of the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and Herman Bontrager, secretary-treasurer of the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom.

Last week, Pitts drafted a letter of opposition to the proposed TV series. More than 50 members of Congress signed that letter, which was mailed to CBS and its owner, Viacom.

Some opponents believe they should defend the Amish, who rarely defend themselves. Others believe the Amish, who have thrived for centuries by being nonconfrontational, will rise above this challenge.

The members of College Mennonite Church in Goshen decided they should do more than complain about a project they believe would harm their Amish neighbors.

So Leonard Gross wrote a letter to the producers, imploring them "to bring the proposed production, "Amish in the City,' to an abrupt halt, pronto.'' Gross's wife, Irene, distributed the letter as a petition, and hundreds of church members and students at nearby Goshen College have signed on to the effort as of this week.

"We decided that Mennonites could be a lobbying group for the Amish,'' says Irene. "It's our hope that the TV people won't find any Amish to do the show, but we're getting signatures on the petition just in case.'' The question remains open whether local initiatives will be coordinated as a national campaign to halt the production.

The Center for Rural Strategies, a small but powerful advocate for rural interests with headquarters n Whitesburg, Ky., is considering leading such a campaign. Rural Strategies coordinated a successful nationwide effort to stop a similar reality TV program a year ago.

That show, another CBS idea called "The Real Beverly Hillbillies,'' would have taken young people from rural America, matched them with more worldly peers and filmed the cultural collision.

Rural Strategies took out full-page ads in major newspapers arguing that the show would ridicule rural Americans while ignoring real problems and opportunities in rural communities.

Rural Strategies promoted its campaign on its own Web site and recruited national organizations and politicians to lobby on its behalf. Forty-four members of Congress wrote a letter to CBS.

After weeks of bombardment, CBS backed off.

Will Rural Strategies follow that strategy in the Amish case? "We're still talking about how we might be of service,'' says Dee Davis, president of Rural Strategies. "The challenge is how do you go to bat for a pacifist community that has done quite well over the years holding onto their convictions and adhering to the tenets of nonconfrontation?'' Davis is not ambivalent about the TV project. "Where does a giant corporation get off thinking that it's entertaining to try to tempt young people to leave their religion?'' he asks. "Because these people are rural and out of the mainstream doesn't give a giant corporation like Viacom a license to ridicule.'' Stopping the "Hillbillies'' show was not easy, Davis says, nor will it be simple to stop "Amish in the City.'' "We found a lot of people in CBS News who hated the "Hillbillies' idea,'' he says, "but CBS Entertainment has its tentacles out there in a lot of different places. You'd be surprised how difficult it is getting them to stop a production.'' At least one other national organization has stated its opposition to UPN's plan.

On its Web site, Tolerance.org, which is dedicated to "fight hate and promote tolerance,'' urges readers to contact CBS, UPN and Viacom to protest "Amish in the City.''

Tolerance.org senior writer Brian Willoughby says those protesting the show want to expose it as "a crass ratings-grab by television executives who don't mind mocking and stereotyping whole classes of people for laughs and profit.''

blog comments powered by Disqus