A Christian group in Australia has forced an advertising company to remove ads promoting HIV awareness and prevention, supposedly in order to protect “young children” from “sexuality…through forced exposure in public.” The ad, above, shows a black and white photo of two men, fully clothed, with a portion of a red package, purportedly a condom, and the words, “Rip & Roll” in the left corner.
“The Australian Christian Lobby has used homophobia dressed up as protecting children to have an important public education campaign removed,” said Paul Martin, Executive Director of Healthy Communities, according to a report in Australia’s Central Telegraph.
“ACL’s State Director for Queensland, Wendy Francis, is calling their campaign to have the ad removed ‘A massive groundswell of people power’ despite only 47 complaints being made,” the Telegraph writes.
“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,” Martin stated.
The Telegraph adds, “Michael James, one of the men depicted in the image, is calling the removal of the ads “blatantly homophobic” and has started a Facebook event protesting Adshel’s decision, attracting over three thousand members after only three hours.”
The Australian Christian Lobby, formerly known as the Australian Christian Coalition, states on its website,
“The vision of the Australian Christian Lobby is to see Christian principles and ethics accepted and influencing the way we are governed, do business and relate to each other as a community.
“The ACL aims to foster a more compassionate, just and moral society by seeking to have the positive public contributions of the Christian faith reflected in the political life of the nation.”
That page now shows over 4000 attending.
You can download your own poster here.
The ACL is on Facebook. You can also email them:Â natoffice@acl.org.au