I believe that I speak on behalf of everyone at Pedestrian when I say that sex is for everyone. It doesn’t matter what colour you are. I doesn’t matter what size or shape you might be. It doesn’t matter what belief system you subscribe to. Just like food and shelter, every individual has a right to sex. After Adshel removed the advertisement (below) promoting safe gay sex in response to complaints from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), they have indirectly given the finger to gay individuals’ basic human right to have sex.
Adshel is an organisation that provides advertising placement in bus shelters around Brisbane and until recently had placed the advert for ‘Rip & Roll’ in various locations around the city. Rip & Roll is an initiative of the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities, which promotes the health of LGBT Queenslanders. A positive message, no? Adshel, however, removed the ads after caving to pressure from the ACL. Wendy Francis, the ACL’s Qld Director, said the ads “went against prevailing community standards to introduce sexuality to young children through forced exposure in public”.
UPDATE via Brisbane Times: Adshel chief executive Steve McCarthy said it was now clear that Adshel had been the target of a co-ordinated ACL campaign against the “Rip and Roll” advertisements designed by the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities. “This has led us to review our decision to remove the campaign and we will therefore reinstate the campaign with immediate effect,” he said.
Wendy’s response to the ad (of two men fully dressed standing in a non-provocative or sexually explicit – or sexually implicit for that matter! – pose, with minimal text and subtle positioning of a condom) leaves me no option but to think that Wendy’s a little delusional or actually hasn’t laid eyes on the ad. There’s nothing remotely sexual about the image, in fact the ad is insanely conservative compared to most condom ads out there.
The ACL’s ‘sexualisation of children’ argument is a ridiculous smokescreen to sidestep the organisation’s appalling and well-publicised anti-homosexual stance.
Like every group the Australian Christian Lobby is free to voice their opinion – no matter how despicable, but when companies like Adshel pander to their discriminatory requests homophobia and hate is publicly reinforced.
If you disagree with Adshel’s decision join the facebook group Homophobia – NOT HERE – Adshel Caves to Homophobic Pressure and find out how to make an official complaint.
Via Ad News
