Bruce Palenske, a Park City gay-rights activist, has accused Salt Lake City newspapers of blocking him from running a political ad criticizing the LDS Church's efforts to ban gay marriage in California.
Palenske had agreed to pay $2,000 to run a full-page ad last Sunday in both The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News , according to a contract supplied by his spokesman, Sal Peralta. But on Friday, Palenske was told the rate would be $10,000.
Brent Low, president and chief executive officer of MediaOne of Utah, which handles advertising for both newspapers, said via e-mail that the original ad price was "misquoted," and, "a manager caught the error and corrected the rate."
The request, Low added, had been to run the ad only in The Tribune -- not the LDS Church-owned Deseret News . He noted a similar ad, purchased by a New York-based gay-rights group and titled "Lies in the name of the Lord," ran in The Tribune earlier this month. The group paid the correct price.
"The content of [Palenske's] ad was not in question. The advertiser chose not to run the ad based on price," Low said in his e-mail, noting Palenske has received a refund for the $2,000 he had already paid.
On Monday, Palenske told the blog Gay Rights Watch that MediaOne had "pulled" the ad "literally five minutes before the production deadline," which would have been late on Saturday night. Phone records show Palenske was notified of the change on Friday afternoon, Low said.
"This is clearly political," Palenske told Gay Rights Watch. "I can't help but think that the LDS came in and put the brakes on this."
Palenske's ad includes an IRS form that can be used to complain about the LDS Church's tax-exempt status because the church, through lobbying its members to contribute their time and cash, helped Proposition 8 succeed in California, eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry in that state.
The ad has been printed in the Park Record in Park City.
Palenske, a gay man in a 20-year relationship, founded www.fullequality.org. In the ad, he said he is "appalled and dismayed" by the LDS Church's efforts to prevent gay couples from marrying.
