Fagburn is tempted to say this shows a complete contempt for their readers, but the endless lazy braindead consumerist corporate Google-found stories gayist drivel they publish day-in day-out has probably rendered that statement somewhat redundant.
A ban on a Christian
group's proposed bus advert suggesting gay people could be helped to
change their sexuality has been ruled as not unlawful.
The High Court ruled Transport for London's process in
introducing the ban "was procedurally unfair". But it ruled TfL was right to ban the Core Issues Trust's
advert because it would "cause grave offence" to those who were gay. The ad posters read: "Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud.
Get over it!" A judge ruled Boris Johnson did not abuse his position as
chairman of TfL when he imposed the ban. 'Widespread offence'Mrs Justice Lang, sitting at London's High Court, ruled TfL's
process in introducing the ban "was procedurally unfair, in breach of
its own procedures and demonstrated a failure to consider the relevant
issues". But that was outweighed by factors against allowing the ad,
including that it would "cause grave offence" to those who were gay and
was perceived as homophobic, "thus increasing the risk of prejudice and
homophobic attacks", said the judge...
Hahaha!
The Core Issues Trust "denied that it was attempting to offer a 'gay cure'", but judging from their website they don't seem to advocate or work on anything else.
I haven't seen the full ruling by the judge yet, but surely the real reason these ads shouldn't have been allowed is because they promote junk science and voodoo "cures"?
Next stop a ban on all commercial advertising in public spaces?
PS And don't forget, despite it making a false claim, the ever hopeless Advertising Standards Authority okayed this campaign. Astonishing.
This charming ad has appeared on a few websites today.
Though it doesn't make it clear, it's a reference to birth certificates in Spain now listing Progenitor A and B instead of mother and father, apparently.
The horror, the horror!
It appears on Guido Fawkes blog with a supportive editorial once again showing that this self-styled "libertarian" has no grasp of libertarianism.
PS The ASA has rejected complaints against Coalition 4 Marriage's last ad. More during the week as the news is embargoed - though the Telegraph have broken it...
The Advertising Standards Authority has rejected twenty complaints about a billboard poster for Manhunt Mobile placed in London.
Complainees said the ad was "overtly sexual" and could be seen by children (!)
There were only two posters, I believe close to Heaven and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
Good news that the ASA hasn't caved into the anti-gay prudes this time.
'The ASA noted Online Buddies had booked locations which were close to
gay clubs but which were also away from schools or businesses that
offered children-based services and that they believed both the
locations and image were relevant to the advertised product. We
understood the ad was a large billboard and that all the complainants
had seen it in its first location before it had been moved. We
acknowledged Online Buddies' attempts to restrict the ad, both before it
was displayed and after they became aware of complaints made to the
ASA. 'We recognised that the image in the ad was relevant to the
advertised product. However, we noted that the couple were shown
bare-chested and from the chest up only and it was therefore unclear
whether they were naked or not. We noted that the eyes of one man were
closed whilst the eyes of the other appeared to be seductively looking
at him and that their lips were parted as if they were about to kiss.
Although we considered the image could be seen as sexual and the ad's
size could draw attention to the sexual nature of their embrace, we
considered the image of the embracing couple who were about to kiss was
unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence. 'On this point, we investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12)
rule 4.1 (Harm and Offence), but did not find it in breach.'
Here's the list released by the Advertising Standards Authority of the ten most complained about ads of all time.
Unbelievably this 1995 safer sex one from the British Standards Council is at number 5 - and, but of course, it was upheld as being offensive to Catholics!
Although regular viewers will know the ASA is rather overfond of not wanting poor Christians be offended by an advert - and the depiction of gayers in this context appears to be unquestionably "offensive".
Oh, and most complaints seem to come from incredibly boring busybodies.
Who knew!?
'The Advertising Standards Agency has been accused of bias after its chairman publicly campaigned for gay marriage while it has placed advertisements from opponents of a change in the law under investigation.'
An almost record-breakingly inelegant and unwieldy sentence from the Daily Telegraph there.
So what's the story?
'The watchdog rejected calls for Lord Smith of Finsbury – the former
Labour
cabinet minister, Chris Smith – to resign last night but accepted that
he
had a “conflict of interest” on the matter and therefore would not
vote.
'It emerged last week that the ASA is investigating an advertisement from
the
Coalition For Marriage (C4M), which campaigns against changing the
law,
following claims it is “offensive” to homosexual people...'
Erm, the "calls for him to resign" have come from one single - and seriously barking - blogger.
Since when did deluded rants from the wilder fringes of the blogosphere carry any political weight?
Fagburn hereby calls for David Cameron to commit hara-kiri live on The One Show on Friday whilst whistling Dixie.
Are you going to turn that into a news story?
The ASA’s decision to investigate complaints about a series of ads by
the Coalition for Marriage that are appearing in the press and online
has prompted some comment in the media, the blogosphere and in other
social media. We would like to clarify that the fact that we are
investigating the complaints does not mean we will necessarily ‘uphold’
them, leading to the ad being banned. We are not at that
decision-making stage yet and will, as always, take into account the
responses we receive. The right of advertisers responsibly to express
their views will undoubtedly be an important factor in our assessment of
whether the ads are likely to cause serious or widespread offence. We
are also looking at whether the ads are misleading.
One of the bloggers on whose blog the ads appeared has raised
concerns about us contacting him as part of our investigation. We have
long found it useful to ask, in confidence, publishers of ads subject to
‘offence’ complaints for their views, because they can give us a
valuable insight into whether or not their readers are likely to be
offended. They are not the subject of our investigation, as we have
made clear to them in this case, and they are not compelled to respond.
Many of the adjudications published on our websites bear that out.
Here are examples of ASA rulings where publishers have responded and we
have agreed with them
that the ads under investigation were acceptable, where some
have regretted publishing the ad in question and where the publisher
has declined to comment.
We cannot comment further on our ongoing investigation before we
reach a decision, but we will very carefully assess the issues at hand before we publish
our findings.
Christian blogger plunged into free speech row after being told to justify 'offensive and homophobic' anti-gay marriage advert
'A Christian blogger is at the centre of a free speech row after posting an 'offensive' advert on behalf of a petition against plans to legalise gay marriage. Advertising watchdogs have demanded an explanation from the writer, known by the pen name Archbishop Cranmer, after they received 24 complaints. The Advertising Standards Authority is asking that he respond to claims that the message - which asks viewers to 'Help us keep the true meaning of marriage' - is homophobic.
The Mail has since updated their article online to include two quotes from the
ASA statement, but have somewhat missed one of the main points and left in the accusation made in the opening paragraph that they "demanded an explanation" from the blogger.
Ho-hum..
PS You should check out the Archbishop Cramner blog - he's every bit as crazy as he is scary.
The fact that 24 people complained about the ads - a pretty disappointing figure - comes from an ASA reply to him. 10 said they found it "offensive", 14 contested the use of a poll had that said 70% of people oppose gay marriage.
'The TV advert shown in February ahead of Ladies' Day at the
Cheltenham Festival invited viewers to spot the "stallions" from the
"mares".
'The ASA investigated 92 complaints that the advert was
offensive and condoned harmful discriminatory behaviour.
'It ruled that it must not be shown again in its current form.
'The advert stated: "...we're going to make Ladies' Day even
more exciting by sending in some beautiful transgendered ladies. Spot
the stallions from the mares".
'The advert showed a series of brief shots of people at the
event while the voice-over tried to guess their gender.
'In one scene, a woman was shown holding a dog while the
voice-over said "woman" then hesitated while the shot changed to show a
woman walking out of a men's toilet, then said "dog, I mean man"...'
BBC News.
Interesting, the ASA has a very poor record on ruling on complaints about LGBT people and adverts.
Earlier this year they okayed the "Not Gay! Ex-Gay Post Gay And Proud Of It" London bus posters.
But upheld complaints about a 2010 Federici ice cream ad that showed two priests about to kiss - even though only six complaints had been received.
But then it was some Christians who complained about the latter, not The Gays.
PS Paddy Power said they consulted The Beaumont Society on the script, but The Beaumont Society say they were shown a different version to the one filmed.
The Twittersphere has been ABLAZE this afternoon over news that posters bearing the legend, ‘Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!’, would be appearing on London buses next week.
This was announced in a statement by two rabidly anti-gay Christian grouplets, Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues, who said it was their response to Stonewall's current advertising campaign; "Some people are gay. Get over it!"
But these went further than Coalition 4 Marriage's highly contentious press and online adverts, as they suggest gay people could, should and can be "cured".
Initially the idea that these would be approved sounded so improbable I wondered if it was an evangelical prank - a false flag campaign that wasn't really happening, but was just designed to generate much sound and fury, and thus loads of free publicity.
Which it has.
But apparently the Advertising Standards Authority had okayed it, claiming the advert "does not infringe any advertising rules in the UK".
Eh? Section 4.1 of the ASA Code states; "Marketing communications must not contain anything that is likely to
cause serious or widespread offence. Particular care must be taken to
avoid causing offence on the grounds of race, religion, gender, sexual
orientation, disability or age. Compliance will be judged on the
context, medium, audience, product and prevailing standards."
Its blatantly false claims about the voodoo of conversion cures are also clearly in contravention of Section 3.
[Update: "Core Issues co-director Mike Davidson said: "We went through the correct channels and we were
encouraged by the bus company to go through their procedures. They okayed it and now it has been pulled." BBC News].
Mind you the ASA have form on appeasing homophobic religious nutters.
At around 6pm it was announced that the campaign had been blocked at the behest of the hapless, hopeless Mayor Of London, Boris Johnson - after The Guardian told his office what was going on.
Transport For London then tweeted to say that they had also been completely unaware of them.
Unbelievable.
What a shower, what a joke, what a farce!
Update: Alok Jha in The Guardian online on why the claims of "conversion therapy" are junk science.
Some bullying members of the militant homosexual lobby are on the virtual warpath because Country Life have run an advert for Coalition 4 Marriage.
Many people are leaving complaints on the magazine's Facebook page.
Good for them - though I can't say I'm particularly arsed about it.
Is anyone surprised Country Life have done this?
This is the third place to my knowledge where C4M has tried to place adverts - and they all show who they see as their natural constituencies. Guido Fawkes blog has run a banner ad - take a look at any comments section and you'll see most of his readers are really nasty and scarily right-wing.
I got into a brief Twitter row with editor Paul Staines about this.
He defended his actions by tweeting; "It is an advert by pro-marriage Christians. Not homophobic. I ran
adverts for Ken Livingstone. Advertisement <> endorsement."
When asked if he did endorse it, came the reply; "Don't know, don't care. I just count the cash and re-stock the wine
cellar."
The Womens' Institute were widely praised for refusing to run an ad for C4M last month.
They used the opposite argument to Mr Fawkes; "As WI Life is the national membership magazine, any promotion of your
campaign could be seen as an endorsement... to members. We do also
welcome all women to the WI and this campaign could offend many of our
members."
Good for them.
The WI are often caricatured as being hilariously Middle England, and I guess C4M may have thought they'd be a shoo-in.
It's instructive and satisfying that that is no longer the case.
And Country Life?
It's the inhouse magazine of Upper England.
Though I can't pretend to read it every week, it's essentially a series of adverts for multi-million pound houses, broken up with advertorial about multi-million pound houses - note the cover above shows Country Life's idea of a smaller country house.
Plus there's a few pictures of posh totty debs, and some doubtlessly positively gripping articles about hunting, shooting, dogging and farming.
Of course Country Life ran the ad!
What do you expect from the Coalition 4 Inbreeding?
Update: Email from Julia Dawson, Complaints Executive, Advertising Standards Authority, on Tuesday, saying the ASA are to investigate complaints that the "70%" claim on the C4M ads is misleading...
The stupid Daily Mail has been reporting about the first stupid knock-on effects of the stupid Mothers' Union/Bailey Report on "The sexualisation of childhood." Yesterday it was 'Goodbye boys! Crackdown on sexual imagery in outdoor advertising will see provocative underwear poses banned'
"In what is seen as a victory for parent-power, sexually explicit images of women will be removed from billboards near schools..."
Brilliant - cause children only see advertising billboards near schools, don't they?
The rest of the time they have bags over their heads.
And if any Daily Mail readers weren't sure what a "provocative underwear pose" looks like they helpfully illustrated the story with the photo above, captioned;
'Banned: Images like this would be banned from billboards near schools'
Genius.
Today we learn; 'Four biggest internet providers to allow parents to protect children from porn in government crackdown'
Brilliant idea!
Cause most teenage boys with a raging horn wouldn't be able to work out how to over-ride that in four minutes, would they?
No more silly and pointless hysterical token gestures in the sex wars, please.
A company that makes and pushes over-priced frozen muck has got a free ad in The Independent, The Telegraph, Fagburn and elsewhere today. The Antonio Federici appeared only in Look magazine, and showed two priests in full robes eating a tub of ice cream "in a seductive pose as if they were about to kiss passionately", said the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). You can read the ASA adjudication here. The adjucation says; "Antonio Federici said their advertisement did not mock Catholicism but reflected the grave troubles they considered affected the Catholic Church. They gave examples of issues that had been reported in the press, which they believed many people would find more offensive than an ad that celebrated homosexuality. They said the issue of gay and lesbian bishops and priests was one that currently divided the Church of England [sic] and was likely to continue to do so... "They said they were Catholics but would continue to produce advertising that challenged the Catholic Church while they believed it remained troubled." Upholding six complaints about the ad, the ASA noted the ad used the text "We Believe in Salivation" in reference to the taste of the product and to the image of the priests. Yup, a piddlying six complaints about an ad which - tellingly - they only paid to put in one magazine. The ASA said: "We considered the portrayal of the two priests in a sexualised manner was likely to be interpreted as mocking the beliefs of Roman Catholics and was therefore likely to cause serious offence to some readers." To which the only reasonable response is; "So what?" Do religions have some special staus at the ASA? The ASA ruled; "The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Antonio Federici to ensure future ads were not likely to cause serious or widespread offence." Eh? But surely they knew this was coming? After the self-made outrage Federici caused by running an ad featuring a pregnant nun to coincide with the pope's visit in September, they publicised the kissing priests one - as Fagburn reported at the time. Funny.
• As before, here are some reasons why dairy products stink and you should go vegan.
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