In December he published a piece arguing the case against gay marriage by the pro-family campaigner, Bill Muehlenberg, and then a series of spirited exchanges on the merits of the argument. It was not the first article he’d run on the subject ; that honour had gone to Rodney Croome, a homosexual activist. Nor were most of the essays run opposed to gay marriage.

It seems to me that the journal has tried to provide balanced coverage on the issue, having given GLBTIQ advocates a forum to air their perspectives, surely it is only fair for those with contrary views to also appeal to the public for support to their views, the fact being that there is still a sizeable minority of people who oppose gay marriage. What is important however is that ultimately the court of public opinion is given space to judge the merits of both cases. What I find unsatisfactory about the decision is that I seem to remember a time when media organisations were similarly disinclined to broadcast views affirming GLBTIQ community rights for fear of running against the grain of popular opinion and thus corporate interests.

This first surprised me because I thought it seemed to indicate that big corporations are sensing the tide is turning on community views regarding Gay Marriage so much so that they are desperate to disassociate themselves with any organisation that provides a view to the contrary. After thinking a little more though, I remembered that what is also in play here is the fact that ANZ and IBM also pitch themselves to their customers as ‘gay friendly’, ANZ is also one of Mardi-gras’ major sponsors (atleast they were last year) and perhaps they felt that position would be compromised if their brand was associated with anti-gay marriage journalism..

What I feel the need for the gay community to do though is to actually go out and bat for the right to expression of these (sometimes wacko) groups who oppose Gay marriage, purely fact that we would be called both hypocritical and ‘manipulators’ of the public (re: sinister homosexual lobby) if it were known that we were associated with the pulling of coverage that spoke negatively against Gay Marriage.

We dont need big corporations to prove their support of our movement by denying the right to expression of our opponents… Our own objectives as gay advocates and our expectations of our corporate supporters should be for them to promote greater public reconciliation between us and all of the community regardless of their views both in the workplace and the wider public setting. This kind of behaviour by ANZ is fuel for the fire for the polarisation of anti-gay religious groups away from the mainstream and the article posted by Anthony is evidence of that…. the further the space between them and us, the harder it will be for us to access and to heal our brothers and sisters caught in their ignorance or even stuck in the closet.

Chris

HOMOSEXUAL LOBBY ATTEMPTS TO CLOSE DOWN ON LINE OPINION SITE

Graham Young is the founding editor of a well-regarded e-journal called On Line Opinion. In December he published a piece arguing the case against gay marriage by the pro-family campaigner, Bill Muehlenberg, and then a series of spirited exchanges on the merits of the argument. It was not the first article he’d run on the subject ; that honour had gone to Rodney Croome, a homosexual activist. Nor were most of the essays run opposed to gay marriage.

On account of the Muehlenberg piece Young said two major advertisers, the ANZ Bank and IBM had pulled their advertising off his site resulting in a 96% fall in advertising revenue in January thus threatening the viability of the site. The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has entered the fray by asking for both ANZ and IBM to explain why they allowed themselves to be coerced by the homosexual lobby into censoring the On Line Opinion website on the issue of homosexual marriage.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said “the silencing of alternate views through On Line Opinion, and possibly other social and conventional media, is beyond the pail in a democratic society. We should be especially appalled that ANZ and IBM would submit to the clear tactic of this very aggressive Lobby to close down debate on a very important issue,” said Mr Wallace “especially when the public at large had no way of knowing that the debate was being censored and would not have expected it to be on a forum of as high standing as On Line Opinion,”.

ACL called on ANZ and IBM to:

• immediately restore their sponsorship to On Line Opinion,

• commit to exerting no further editorial pressure without declaring it publicly, and

• to explain why they had allowed themselves to be co-opted by this lobby into limiting free expression and speech so deceptively, and on a medium in which the public should be able to have full confidence.

“If we are to have a full debate on this issue it must be that,” said Mr Wallace, “not one closed down by abuse and deceptive tactics or corporate pressure and collusion to limit free speech, as we have seen used here by homosexual activists and their apparent allies.“

Source: Compiled by APN from various sources

What do you think of this piece.??????????????

I actually agree that forums like ON LINE OPINION should provide a place for expression of opposing views, so as to allow us, the readers – whether gay or straight to make up our own minds.

However, I would like to raise some points on how I viewed the article written by APN. The writers of this article state the following:

– the editor of ON LINE OPINION and the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) state that the ANZ and IBM pulling the advertising money from ON LINE OPINION = support by the ANZ and IBM for the ‘Homosexual Lobby’ and the pro gay marriage view and the influence of the ‘Homosexual Lobby’ on these businesses.

– they have not said if they have approached the ANZ or IBM for a statement – to either support or deny the view put forward by the ON LINE OPINION editor or the ACL.

So, my thoughts were:

– have either of these companies privately stated to the Editor of ON LINE OPINION or anyone else, or publicly stated that there is a link between the ‘anti gay marriage’ article and their decision to pull the funding? The article doesn’t state either was done.

– if the answer is NO to either of these questions – is it just consequential / bad timing by the marketing departments of ANZ and IBM to pull the funding? Maybe they have other funding priorities? Maybe the ongoing funding of the ON LINE FORUM simply did not give them ‘the bang for their buck’ when it came to marketing and has nothing to do with the article at all.

– So, are the On Line Forum / ACL / APN and and us, as readers, making an assumption that there is a direct relationship between these two businesses decision to pull funding / marketing and and the anti gay marriage article?

I am not sitting on the fence on this one – but to me, there are too many holes in the APN article, and it raises too many questions for me to simply believe the ‘message’ presented by APN.

Happy to hear others thoughts… 🙂

davidt – I am sure that what you would have submitted to ACL would have been clearly and logically reasoned with no ‘abuse or deceptive tactics’.

In their Media Release dated 6th February headed, “ACL calls for ANZ and IBM to explain attempt to censor On Line Opinion website” they say, inter alia :

ACL called on ANZ and IBM to “explain why they had allowed themselves to be co-opted .. .. .. into limiting free expression and speech so deceptively, and on a medium in which the public should be able to have full confidence”.

“If we are to have a full debate on this issue it must be that,” said Mr Wallace, “not one closed down by abuse and deceptive tactics or corporate pressure and collusion to limit free speech .. .. .. ”

Yet they censor you !!! What hypocrites they show themselves to be. Modern-day pharisees. Most sad.

I spoke with the CEO of ACL yesterday and I explained what the scriptures actually said about homosexuality. He said he had never actually studied what the scriptures said on the topic for himself. I found that incredible. Still, I am sure he knows now. It will be interesting to see if there is any difference in their approach.

He must be making very significant dollars from his supporters by gay bashing.