Nick Airing Program Despite Protests

Nickelodeon is going ahead with a children's television special about same-sex parents, despite receiving so many e-mails that the network had to create a separate address to avoid a computer crash.

The half-hour report, produced by Linda Ellerbee and featuring Rosie O'Donnell, includes comments from the Rev. Jerry Falwell -- who later joined conservative activists in urging Nickelodeon not to air it.

The children's network received 100,000 e-mails and phone calls to protest the program, set to air Tuesday night in the United States.

The Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition has spearheaded the campaign against "Nick News Special Edition: My Family is Different," sight unseen.

"It is a cover for promoting homosexuality for kids," said Andrea Lafferty, the coalition's executive director.

Nickelodeon said that's not so. Ellerbee, in the show's introduction, says, "The following program is about tolerance ... It is not about sex. It does not tell you what to think."

Ellerbee, who won a Peabody broadcasting award for a Nickelodeon special that delicately dissected the Monica Lewinsky scandal for children, said she conceived of this show upon reading that the word "fag" had become the most common schoolyard epithet.

O'Donnell's public acknowledgment that she is a lesbian put the subject in the news, Ellerbee said. The former talk-show host has adopted three children.

The program is largely a discussion. Although it also features a gay school principal and a gay New York City firefighter who is a father of three, children are the focus.

Some children with gay parents talk about feeling uncomfortable about what other kids say in school. Other children discuss their objection to homosexuality.

"It is never a wrong time to talk about hate," Ellerbee said. "It's just not. That's all our show is about. It is not in any way about the homosexual lifestyle. It's not even introducing the subject to most kids. They know. But quite frankly, many of them know it from a hate standpoint without even knowing what they're talking about."

But Lafferty said, "They keep saying it is not about sexuality. It is about sexuality."

Parents are upset because many thought they never had to worry about Nickelodeon's content, she said.

"They have been led to believe that Nick is a safe harbor," she said. "Now they've been exposed. The skirt has been lifted and Nick has been exposed."

Falwell is quoted expressing his opposition to homosexuality on Christian grounds. He also said it's important to respect other points of view and not react with violence.

He said later, in an interview with The Associated Press, that he is sorry Nickelodeon feels the need to "indoctrinate" children into homosexuality.

"Nickelodeon should stay away from endorsing lifestyles that are generally not accepted by the American public," Falwell said. "It turns a children's network into something parents feel a responsibility to edit and carefully filter."

Asked how he reconciled his articipation in the show with a call not to air it, Falwell said, "I've often said I would preach in hell if they promised to let me out."

Ellerbee said she was disappointed by Falwell's later comments.

Herb Scannell, Nickelodeon's chief executive, said he had no hesitation about airing the special, calling it another way of "looking at the world from a kid's point of view."

"The whole philosophy of Nick is that it's tough to be a kid in an adult world," he said.

Nickelodeon and CBSNews.com are both owed by Viacom.