Now, get acquainted with Wife Swap, a reality show that is, according to its website, “unlike any other, where the battlegrounds are the kitchens and living rooms, child-rearing is a subject of intense and heated debate, and the outcome isn't a cash prize, but a couple's opportunity to re-discover why they love each other and decided to marry in the first place … It's a radical shock to both families. The results are explosive …”

If you haven’t seen Wife Swap, don’t let the kinky name fool you. This is not a show about trading sex partners. Here’s the premise: Two wives switch places with each other for two weeks. The wives go to secret locations where each meets her new “family.” During the first week, the visiting wife must follow the real wife’s written rules and take on her household and work duties. In week two, the visiting wife gets to make new rules, which everyone in the house must follow. Meanwhile, television cameras capture the goings on in both homes.

As you might have guessed, Wife Swap has a Mr. Potato Head quality to it. The wives “swapped” don’t fit their new families comfortably; they’re complete opposites. The result for each family is a rather cockeyed “mom” whose nose is out of joint more than it’s not. If you still can’t picture what I mean, imagine Cindy Sheehan trading places with Laura Bush for two weeks.

Explosive, indeed.

ABC contends that Wife Swap “is enlightening and often very funny … [it’s] a show about the things that really matter to families across America.” But the Bedfords aren’t laughing. They say their lives took a collective turn for the worse as a result of their participation in the show in October of 2004.

No, the Bedfords didn’t contract incurable diseases. No one lost a limb. No one was shot, stabbed or raped. No one was decapitated by a faulty mike boom or paralyzed by a flying camera. A tragic accident didn’t take the life of a family pet. A tornado didn’t rip through their home and destroy everything they own. As far as I can tell, no one even stubbed a toe. The Bedfords’ “worst nightmare” was meeting a presumably normal, run of the mill gay man.

That’s right, the “wife” ABC sent to the Bedfords’ home was more Mike Brady than Carol Brady.

Jeffrey Bedford, a loving, Christian husband and father, was shocked by the show’s so-called twist. He expected more when he agreed to allow his entire family to participate in a reality program not so innocuously called “Wife Swap.” 

Why? That’s the $64,000 question.

Actually, it’s the $10,225,000 question. Bedford is suing Walt Disney Company (dba American Broadcasting Company, Inc.), ABC Television Network and RDF Media Ltd (producer of the show) for over $10M clams.

Bedford claims he was misled. He believed his wife would be “swapped” with a nice heterosexual woman, not a gay man. The surprise, he says, caused him a great deal of distress. And he contends that what happened after the initial knock on his door added to his misery.

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