In jolly ol’ England, the crime of public Christianity cannot go investigated. So it that Big Brother has sent threatening missives to an Anglican blogger for the crime of having an ad for traditional marriage. The blogger in question, writing under the pseudonym and guise of the long deceased Archbishop Cranmer, treats the demands of ominous sounding “Advertising Standards Authority” with the proper dose of derision.
Apparently there have been a number of complaints about one of the advertisements His Grace carried on behalf of the Coalition for Marriage. He has been sent all manner of official papers, formal documentation and threatening notices which demand answers to sundry questions by a certain deadline. He is instructed by the ‘Investigations Executive’ of this inquisition to keep all this confidential.Since His Grace does not dwell in Iran, North Korea, Soviet Russia, Communist China or Nazi Germany, but occupies a place in the cyber-ether suspended somewhere between purgatory and paradise, he is minded to ignore that request. Who do these people think they are?The advertisement in question is reproduced above. His Grace would like to make it clear to the ASA that he is reproducing this allegedly ‘offensive and homophobic’ advertisement as an educative illustration of allegedly offensive and homophobic advertising; not as an offensive and homophobic advertisement per se. Naturally, His Grace apologises in advance to all those who find this educative illustration offensive and homophobic, for it is never his intention to be either offensive or homophobic. But those of you who do find it offensive and homophobic are free not to visit His Grace’s blog whenever you wish.
May 12, 2012 at 2:02 am
Marriage is a covenant of souls, souls who care abour each other's soul for eternity. A woman's soul cannot make covenant with another woman's soul.
May 12, 2012 at 2:18 am
The claim that the "advertisement" is offensive as per the legislation is patently groundless (particularly as the UK state recognises marriage as being between a man and a woman) and constitutes, at the very least, a frivolous and probably, a vexatious complaint. In fact, an argument could be made that it is a malicious complaint (the identity of at least one complainant group suggests motivation). In any event, the Authority does not have (as a matter of statutory interpretation – reasonableness, natural justice, etc.) the jurisdiction to have this claim adjudicated by the AS Council. The blogger could seek a judicial review of the decision by the ASA to do so. However, leave to apply for JR needs to be sought with alacrity and it would be advisable to respond in writing to the ASA first to give them an opportunity to rescind their decision. The conduct of the ASA on the facts divulged appears to be unreasonable and unjust in my opinion, and the decision, therefore, invalid. (And that's without considering the issue of whether the particular website can or does come within the parameters of the Act.)
May 12, 2012 at 4:05 am
One questions the wisdom in his choice of pseudonyms; William Cobbett once said of Cranmer that he was such a person as to make you doubt the goodness of God, but then you remembered that he'd been burned alive.
For the rest of it, where is this "England"? The correct appellation is "Airstrip One".
May 12, 2012 at 2:09 pm
You need to think like a progressive: "Your beliefs are fine as long as you neither live by them or tell others about them nor mind my shoving my values down your throat."
May 13, 2012 at 1:16 am
FR Bill P:
Rather reminds me of the standards by which Christians must live in the Muslim world.
May 13, 2012 at 5:47 am
I went over there to see a little more about this.
In light of the HORRIBLE things that are said on the internet every day about everyone from, well, Christians to gay folks to Muslims to Libertarians, the ad in question seems… inoffensive, to say the least.
Whether or not anyone agrees with the sentiment expressed therein, it's tough to see how removing it would be justified.
May 14, 2012 at 3:28 pm
I think you meant "uninvestigated" in the main post.