Media Guardian: Race & Religion Article #1

(Highlighted parts are in blue)

Gay police ad angers Christians

Mark Sweney

MediaGuardian, Wednesday 18 October 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/oct/18/raceandreligion.religion

An ad by the Gay Police Association has become the most complained about of the year, accused of portraying Christians as the main group responsible for religion-fuelled homophobia.

The ad, which featured a Bible next to a pool of blood, ran in the Independent under the headline "In the name of the father".

Text in the ad stated: "In the past 12 months, the Gay Police Association has recorded a 74% increase in homophobic incidents, where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator."

The Advertising Standards Authority received 553 complaints - from groups including Christian Watch and the Evangelical Alliance - saying that the ad was derogatory, offensive and irresponsible by implying Christians were responsible for most such homophobic incidents.

A number of the complainants also questioned whether the GPA could substantiate its statistics on homophobia.

The ad was also accused of being misleading in implying, through the use of the pool of blood image, that all homophobic incidents were violent.

The GPA said the ad was devised to coincide with the 2006 EuroPride event and in response to the group's helpline receiving almost 250 calls in the year to March - a 74% year-on-year increase.

The association also argued that the issues raised by the ad were not exclusive to Christianity and that it was never its intention to describe all followers of religion as homophobic.

However, it added that most of the incidents of religious homophobia it recorded concerned Christianity, while approximately 25% referred to Islam and the Muslim faith. It also said the use of words such as "incident" showed the ad was referring to all kinds of discrimination - not solely violence.

The Independent said the ad was published in the Diversity supplement of the paper - in an issue devoted to gay rights timed to coincide with the Gay Pride march.

Following complaints from readers the paper published a letter of complaint and commissioned an article for the next supplement including quotes from complainants and the GPA to "air the matter fully".

In its ruling the ASA upheld some of the complaints.

It said that, while the ad was likely to be "deemed inappropriate by some", it did not imply that Christian teaching condoned homophobia and that its appearance in a wider supplement on diversity in the Independent meant it was unlikely to be interpreted by most readers as inciting violence against people of faith or Christians.

However, the ASA said the use of "shocking imagery" such as blood splatters to highlight the rise in homophobic incidents suggested that all the reported incidents involved physical injury.

It also ruled that the GPA did not adequately support its statistical claims.