Chattanooga TV Station Refuses Gay Marriage Ad

As the national same-sex marriage debate turns its focus on Tennessee, a Chattanooga television station has been drawn into the conversation by rejecting a commercial from Freedom To Marry, an organization that promotes marriage equality.

The News-Sentinel report FTM announced Friday that the commercial would air in Tennessee this coming week, but Chattanooga’s WRCB, an NBC affiliate, turned down the commercial, indicating it wanted to be neutral on the issue.

In an interview with BuzzFeed, WRCB president and general manager Tom Tolar said his station had no position on ads on same-sex marriage until this week when they reviewed the FTM commercial.

“It’s just a very controversial and personal issue, and we just choose to not air a commercial on either side of that debate,” Tolar said. He said there were “not really” any other issue-based commercials that stir such emotions.

Marc Solomon of FTM said this is the first commercial to be rejected by anyone of the more than two dozen commercials his campaign has produced. He added that stations in Memphis and Nashville will be airing the commercial.


The commercial features Nashville’s Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, a gay Republican Navy veteran who is back in Tennessee after serving in a trauma hospital during a nine-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. Ehrenfeld wants to marry his partner, Judd Taback, who is also seen in the commercial.