Gay “Censorship?”

Consider the following story from Pink News:

A local television station in the United States has pulled a one hour programme paid for by a notoriously homophobic “family” group.

“Homophobic” here, of course, simply means “Christian.”

The American Family Association (AFA) had paid for airtime on WOOD-TV in Michigan to screen Speechless: Silencing the Christians.

It claims to “reveal the truth about the radical homosexual agenda and its impact on the family, the nation and religious freedom.”

WOOD-TV General Manager Diane Kniowski said earlier this week that it would not run the AFA programme this Saturday as planned.

“Our station is being bombarded with calls and messages, and we find ourselves in the middle of someone else’s fight,” she said.

“Ours was a fair offer and we are removing ourselves from this matter.”

The programme, which is available online, claims hate crimes laws target preaching what the Bible says about homosexuality, gays play a key role to play in the spread of all STDs and HIV/AIDS and employment protection based on sexual orientation will force churches to hire homosexuals.

Of course, all of this is true, if politically incorrect to mention.

The Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organisation, had urged its members to contact the station and ask that they pull the programme.

The same website trumpets “McDonald’s defiant as homophobes call for boycott,” obviously happy that the fast food giant is resisting a boycott from the American Family Association.

So while they are bringing pressure to bear on a Michigan TV station, they are happy that another company is paying little heed to pressure brought from the other side.

In fact, the article on McDonald’s complains that the AFA has “advocated censorship of print and electronic media.” This from an organization that advocates censorship of print and electronic media.

We, in fact, think that anybody has a right to buy from, or refuse to buy from, anybody they want. If you don’t like the policies of a company, you have a right to shop elsewhere. If you don’t like what a TV station shows, you can switch the channel.

It’s only really censorship when government is involved, and the gay lobby is happy to get government involved in trying to shut up opinions they don’t like, via “hate speech” laws.

In fact, private markets provide a strong incentive for business enterprises to avoid controversy and not get far outside the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable. For example, Pink News complains that:

Last year in a dramatic u-turn Wal-Mart, the largest grocer in the US and the second largest in the world, stepped back from the active support it was previously giving to gay-rights groups.

The AFA threatened to boycott Wal-Mart’s next big sales period and condemned the blanket support it offered to gay-friendly business initiatives.

And further complains that “Heniz [sic] shrugs off gay boycott with soaring sales figures.” Heinz had shown a commercial with two men kissing. In the wake of complaints Heinz explained:

The advertisement was intended to be humorous, not designed to cause offence to anyone.

Clearly it failed in its intent to amuse and that is why we took the decision to withdraw it.

Bottom line: the next time somebody accuses somebody on the other side of the ideological spectrum of engaging in “censorship,” look around and you are likely to see them rooting for exactly the same kind of “censorship” from their own side.