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The Christian Lobby successfully campaigns for the removal of the Healthy Communities advertisement.
Please support Healthy Communities to fight this! The press release says:
Adshel, the company that provides advertising in bus shelters around Brisbane, has today given in to pressure from the Australian Christian Lobby and removed a safe sex campaign featuring a gay male couple.Adshel, Goa Billboards (where the advert is also placed) and the Advertising Standards Bureau have received complaints from a clearly orchestrated campaign from a well organised minority to have the advertisements removed.
The advert has been released by the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities* (‘Healthy Communities’) as part of our Queensland Government funded HIV prevention and sexual health promotion work with gay men.
The ‘Rip & Roll’ advert features a gay male couple (fully clothed) in an affectionate embrace holding an unopened condom packet. The campaign logo “Rip & Roll” is featured with an unbranded condom in its packet. It is accompanied with the strap-line ‘A safe sex message from Healthy Communities’ and provides our web address and 1800 line. See our website www.qahc.org.au for a copy of the advert.
“We are deeply disappointed by the behaviour of Adshel in removing the advertisements, without even notifying us and without proper reason” said Paul Martin, Executive Director of Healthy Communities.
“The advert is in no way explicit or offensive to the average Queenslander. The complaints claim that depictions of gay people and discussion of sexual health are not appropriate for the general community. We reject these claims outright.”
“2010 saw the highest number of people diagnosed with HIV than at any time since testing began in the mid 1980s. 65% of these diagnoses are among gay men. Now, more than ever, it is important that we get the safe sex message out to Queenslanders, particularly gay men, wherever they may be.”
“The advertisement is quite conservative when compared with other public advertisements for a range of commercial products and previous sexual health campaigns by the Australian and Queensland Governments.”
“The Australian Christian Lobby has used homophobia dressed up as protecting children to have an important public education campaign removed. ACL’s Queensland Director Wendy Francis has previously been criticised and forced to apologise for sending out a homophobic tweet likening gay marriage to ‘legalising child abuse’. They are now trying have gay people erased from the public sphere.”
What can you do?
Individuals – contact Adshel and demand that the adverts be put back up in their original locations.
Phone: 07 3250 8200
Fax: 07 3257 7776
Email: via website http://www.adshel.com.au/who/contact
Write: Suite 19, Plumridge House, 36 Agnes St, Fortitude Valley Q 4006
Organisations – we need messages of support from your organisation supporting our campaign, supporting the gay community and demanding that the adverts be put back up in their original locations. We will use these messages of support publically, so please ensure that you have the appropriate authorisation. Please send messages of support to jrusso@qahc.org.au
You can keep up to date with what’s happening by visiting the Healthy Communities website at www.qahc.org.au Here you will also find Healthy Communities’ response to the complaint and examples of complaints received via the Advertising Standards Bureau.
Thanks for your support and wish us luck!
Kind regards
Paul Martin
Queensland Association for Healthy Communities (QAHC)
PO Box 1372
EAGLE FARM BC QLD 4009
