AMVETS: NFL Ad Rejection 'Strong Form of Corporate Censorship'

The director of the veterans group AMVETS said the group was disappointed after the National Football League rejected an ad that asked players to stand during the national anthem.

"We were surprised and very disappointed – and we felt this was a strong form of corporate censorship," AMVETS executive director Joe Chenelly told Wednesday's "Fox & Friends."

The NFL rejected the full-page ad, which would have featured a military honor guard holding an American flag and the text #PleaseStand, CNN reported Tuesday.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the Super Bowl is not a place for political advertisements.

"It has never been a place for advertising that could be considered by some as a political statement," McCarthy said in a statement, according to CNN.

Chenelly mentioned on "Fox & Friends" the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and NASCAR would be running the ad. He noted an advertising agency working with the NFL was their go-between, and asked the group to change its message in the ad, but the group refused, Chenelly told "Fox & Friends."

"But we do believe that we should be able to — especially since we are paying — should be able to express our stance on this situation," Chenelly said.

The director said his group also takes on diversity issues and racial injustice, "but we try to do that at the proper time and place," he said.

"We want to make it clear that our organization feels that people should be standing for the national anthem, and we are just simply asking them," Chenelly said. "We are not criticizing them if they choose not to."

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