London mayor steps in to stop buses carrying Christian group's ads
that claim therapy can stop people being gay
Robert Booth, H?l?ne Mulholland and Patrick Strudwick
Friday April 13 2012
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/12/anti-gay-adverts-boris-johnson
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, intervened to prevent a Christian
advertising campaign from promoting the idea that gay people can be
converted to heterosexuality.
Just days before the posters were due to appear on buses in the
capital, Johnson ordered his transport chiefs to pull the adverts
booked by two conservative Anglican groups following outrage among gay
campaigners and politicians saying that they were homophobic. The
adverts were booked on behalf of the Core Issues Trust [http://
www.core-issues.org/" title="] whose leader, Mike Davidson, believes
"homoerotic behaviour is sinful".
His charity funds "reparative therapy" for gay Christians, which it
claims can "develop their heterosexual potential". The campaign was
also backed by Anglican Mainstream, a worldwide orthodox Anglican
group whose supporters have equated homosexuality with alcoholism. The
advert was due to say: "Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over
it!"
Johnson, who contacted the Guardian to announce he was stopping the
adverts within two hours of their contents becoming public, said:
"London is one of the most tolerant cities in the world and intolerant
of intolerance. It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is
an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have
that suggestion driven around London on our buses."
His main rival in next month's mayoral election, Ken Livingstone, said
Johnson should never have allowed the adverts to be booked. "London is
going backwards under a Tory leadership that should have made these
advertisements impossible.
"They promote a falsehood, the homophobic idea of 'therapy' to change
the sexual orientation of lesbians and gay men."
The Christian groups insisted the advert had been cleared with
Transport for London (TfL), which is chaired by the mayor. Davidson
said: "I didn't realise censorship was in place. 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."
CBS Outdoor, the media company that sells the bus advertising sites,
said the ad had been passed for display by the Committee of
Advertising Practice. It is understood TfL was due to make around ?
10,000 for allowing the adverts to run on about two dozen buses across
five routes.
The campaign was an explicit attempt to hit back at the gay rights
group Stonewall, which as part of its lobbying for the extension of
marriage to gay couples is running its own bus adverts saying: "Some
people are gay. Get over it." The Christian groups used the same
black, red and white colour scheme as Stonewall and in a statement
announcing the campaign accused it of promoting the "false idea that
there is indisputable scientific evidence that people are born gay".
The gay ex-vicar, Labour MP and former minister Chris Bryant, said the
advert was cruel for promoting the idea that you could become "ex-gay"
and he said it would particularly hurt teenagers struggling to come to
terms with their sexuality.
"The emotional damage that is done to the individuals who try to
suppress their sexuality, the women they marry and the children they
might have is immeasurable," he said. "Most sane Christians believe
that homosexuality is not a lifestyle or a choice but is a fact to be
discovered or not. The pretence that homosexuality is something you
can be weaned off in some way is a fundamental misunderstanding of the
nature of creation."
Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, said the adverts
were "clearly homophobic" and added: "The only reason some gay people
might want to stop being gay is because of the prejudice of the people
who are publishing the ad.
"The promotion of this voodoo therapy is hugely irresponsible given
the damage that it appears to do to some people."
Both men said the advert should not be banned, however, because they
believed in freedom of speech.
Attempts to "treat" or alter sexual orientation have been strongly
condemned by leading medical organisations. The Royal College of
Psychiatrists has warned that "so-called treatments of homosexuality
create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish" and
concluded in 2010: "There is no sound evidence that sexual orientation
can be changed."
The British Medical Association has also attacked "conversion
therapy", a related field to reparation therapy, passing a motion
asserting that it is "discredited and harmful to those 'treated' ".
The Rev Lynda Rose, a spokesperson for the UK branch of Anglican
Mainstream, said her group adhered to scripture that all fornication
outside marriage is prohibited and believed that homosexuals were "not
being fully the people God intended us to be". She said therapies
endorsed by Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues were not coercive and
were appropriate for people who wanted to change their sexual
attractions, for example if they were married and worried about the
impact of a "gay lifestyle" on their children.
The decision to pull the adverts is being seen as a potential boost
for conservative Christian organisations attempting to become more
politically active in the UK. "Banning this is usually a fairly good
way to encourage a sense that people are being marginalised and
persecuted," said Simon Barrow, co-founder of the Ekklesia thinktank
which has tracked the progress of what it calls aggressive
conservative Christianity. "It could be part of a developing tactic to
draw attention to themselves and a way of using victimhood to
galvanise sympathy and support."
Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, said: "From
personal experience as a gay Christian, I can tell you that it's much
better to be out than in. We should be celebrating the diversity for
which London is known, not denigrating it.
Revelations about the adverts came as Johnson was due to appear at a
hustings organised by Stonewall on Saturday.
- The original version of this article stated that 'the ad had been
passed for display by the Committee of Advertising Practice and it
complied with Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidelines'.
In fact the ASA does not pre-clear adverts and had nothing to do with
the decision to pass the advert. The article has been amended to
reflect this and to also remove a subsequent quote misattributed to
the ASA.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2012
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