Australia: Must not criticise homosexuality

[Public] Broadcaster SBS has pulled the Australian Marriage Forum's anti same-sex marriage television advertisement from their Sunday night telecast of the 37th Sydney Mardi Gras.

The 43-second TV ad aired on Channel 7 and 9 on Saturday while the parade was underway and shows a mother sitting at a playground table with her young daughter while her husband and son play on a slide in the background.  "We hear a lot about marriage equality, but what about equality for kids?" the woman says.

The advertisement also features David van Gend, the president of the Australian Marriage Forum and a family doctor, who is described on-screen only as a "family doctor".  "So-called marriage equality forces a child to miss out on a mother or a father," Dr van Gend says. "That's not equality for the kids who miss out. That's not marriage."

The ad was part of the Forum's campaign opposing same-sex marriage, called "Think of the Child".

Dr van Gend said the ad was booked and paid for but he received an email from SBS on Friday saying they had pulled it.

"Our review board has instructed that SBS has the right to choose what ads we run, and I've unfortunately been instructed to advise you that we choose not to run this TVC for the Marriage Forum during the Mardi Gras telecast," the email from SBS sales manager for Queensland, Nick Belof, said.  An SBS spokesperson told Fairfax Media that it reserved the right "to determine what advertisements it broadcasts".

Dr van Gend said the pulling of the ad was a "suppression of free speech".  "It is outrageous for a taxpayer funded broadcaster like SBS to apply censorship to one side of the debate on same-sex marriage," he said.

"SBS gives free airtime for them to make their political point on 'marriage equality', but refuses to show even one minute of a paid ad presenting an opposing view."

SOURCE