http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politi...09-13yw0z.html
Just a quick background: the ABC is entirely government funded. SBS is half-government funded but is then entirely commercially-funded, while Channels 7 and 9 are both commercially funded. (along with whatever digital channels they have)
So a bunch of Christian evangelicals disguised as a political party decided to create an ad around anti gay-marriage, which basically also proceeded to alienate a good chunk of the heterosexual Australian population (basically any family which did not consist of mum, dad and their biological children (no half-children, no step-children) was alienated in this ad). They put it out there to whichever networks would air it and while a couple accepted, the big issue was that they wanted to air it during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade (basically a GIANT pride parade) on SBS.
Long story short, the ad received a ton of backlash from members of the public and SBS chose not to air it. 2 other channels opted to air it and they're now receiving backlash. Most of the ads that were on during SBS were a mixture of beyondblue support ads aimed at the LGBT population along with the standard fare and some promos for their "Queer Cinema" block (not my words-basically SBS has a timeslot every week where they run a movie, but they do it in themes, so for instance, one block was Miyazaki movies, another block was 80's teen flicks).
The comments at the moment tend to fall into three categories: those who are against the ad or it being aired; those who are against what they see as "media censorship" or who cite free speech and have become annoyed that because SBS is partially government-funded they should've aired the ad* ; and those who are just anti gay-marriage overall.
*-this argument is a special breed of dumb, because of two things: freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism and media censorship really only technically applies in the realm of the government. The GOVERNMENT is not opting to pull this ad and even complaining to the Ad Standards Board (the government group that handles this stuff) hasn't worked because it's political!
Just a quick background: the ABC is entirely government funded. SBS is half-government funded but is then entirely commercially-funded, while Channels 7 and 9 are both commercially funded. (along with whatever digital channels they have)
So a bunch of Christian evangelicals disguised as a political party decided to create an ad around anti gay-marriage, which basically also proceeded to alienate a good chunk of the heterosexual Australian population (basically any family which did not consist of mum, dad and their biological children (no half-children, no step-children) was alienated in this ad). They put it out there to whichever networks would air it and while a couple accepted, the big issue was that they wanted to air it during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade (basically a GIANT pride parade) on SBS.
Long story short, the ad received a ton of backlash from members of the public and SBS chose not to air it. 2 other channels opted to air it and they're now receiving backlash. Most of the ads that were on during SBS were a mixture of beyondblue support ads aimed at the LGBT population along with the standard fare and some promos for their "Queer Cinema" block (not my words-basically SBS has a timeslot every week where they run a movie, but they do it in themes, so for instance, one block was Miyazaki movies, another block was 80's teen flicks).
The comments at the moment tend to fall into three categories: those who are against the ad or it being aired; those who are against what they see as "media censorship" or who cite free speech and have become annoyed that because SBS is partially government-funded they should've aired the ad* ; and those who are just anti gay-marriage overall.
*-this argument is a special breed of dumb, because of two things: freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism and media censorship really only technically applies in the realm of the government. The GOVERNMENT is not opting to pull this ad and even complaining to the Ad Standards Board (the government group that handles this stuff) hasn't worked because it's political!
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