Category Archives: ASS

ASS, Gay, Humour

ASS says ‘Gay’ Jesus billboard not offensive

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st_matthew_billboard_gay_baby_jesus_time_to_come_out

St. Matthew-in-the-City has been up to its usual tricks. The billboard pictured above appeared a week before Christmas last year and, as anticipated, a complaint was laid with the Advertising Standards Authority Society. But ASS deemed the billboard not offensive, said TVNZ today.

The complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority said the representation of Jesus was “akin to hate speech”.

However, a decision released yesterday found the billboard’s speculation about Jesus’ sexual orientation did not breach advertising codes.

It was “prepared by a Christian church to promote debate within the Christian faith, as opposed to a deliberately offensive advertisement by an outside party for commercial gain, had been prepared with a due sense of social responsibility”, the decision reads.

Is it within ASS’s remit to deem the billboad in exceptionally poor taste? Because it is. That sort of thing should be reserved for this blog!

Here’s an idea for St. Matthew-in-the-City’s upcoming Easter billboard.

Dad 3

That’ll promote debate within the Christian faith, for sure.

ASS

Advertising Standards Authority – no jurisdiction over own name

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Following my complaint about the Advertising Standards Authority Society misrepresenting themselves as an authority the ASS has ruled that it can not consider a complaint about its own name because it has NO JURISDICTION.

It’s an ironic ruling. My complaint is that they claim authority when they have no authority i.e. the ASS have no jurisdiction at all, however this would be the one occasion where the ASS actually have authority because the complaint is about their business – they own it – they have complete authority over themselves. They just don’t have authority over anybody else.

The ruling is now on the ASS website.

ASS, Censorship

Advertising Standards Authority Society

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I filed the following complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority Society this morning. (I hope this post is self explanatory. šŸ™‚ )

This complaint is made under principle 3 (No advertisement should be misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive the consumer).

It has come to my attention that the Advertising Standards Authority is not an authority in any meaningful sense and that the ā€œAdvertising Standards Authorityā€ is actually a Society. The name of this Society is misleading. The name would cause members of the public to believe that the Advertising Standards Authority is a government empowered agency.

The Advertising Standards Society also misleadingly issues members of the public with ā€œrulingsā€ (definition: an authoritative decision or pronouncement, esp. one made by a judge).

It is reasonable to expect that many people have complied with the Societyā€™s ā€œrulingsā€ because they were misled by the name of the society and thought there was an obligation to comply with ā€œrulingsā€. It is also reasonable to expect that many members of the public have incurred costs in compliance as a result of the misleading language.

Can you please investigate?

When I get a response from them I will post it here.

Resources:
ASAS Incorporation Details
ASAS Online Complaint Form

ASS, Censorship

RIP Lady Liberty

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RIP Lady Liberty.

Blair Mulholland has the background to this story. Yesterday, New Zealand’s “freedom of expression”, a right supposedly protected by our Bill of Rights Act, was involuntarily euthanased after a long battle with the big C.

Ruling: Jesus doesn’t heal cancer

A church billboard proclaiming that “Jesus Heals Cancer” has breached advertising standards by suggesting the church can offer something other churches cannot, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.

Tributes pour in from around the blogosphere. Here is New Zealand’s #1 libertarian, Lindsay Perigo, true to form.

Jeezy doesn’t cure cancer … I suppose it would be an affront if he were to. Cancer is presumably Gobby’s work? To heal it would be an act of rebellion against one’s father.

“In all seriousness,” said Perigo on an earlier occasion, “who doesn’t value freedom of speech will lose it.” Are we to suppose, then, that denying a church’s right to express the view that Jesus heals cancer is no great loss?

It’s hardly news that New Zealand’s #1 Objectivist thinks that Christians are scoundrels. Has he forgotten that it was such that H. L. Mencken had in mind?

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Freedom of speech is foremost among the “rights and privileges of British subjects” bestowed on all New Zealanders by the Treaty of Waitangi. In the nineteenth century, the British prided themselves on valuing eccentricity over conformity, on untrameled freedom of speech. Thousands of New Zealanders went on to give their lives for this freedom. We should rage, rage and rage again against anything which threatens its demise.

I know. I’m being premature and uncharitable. In fact, I’m confident that Perigo’s imminent press release will blow the Advertising Standards Authority to kingdom come. And, really, I suppose, I should practise what I preach.