Via Herald Sun:

ADVERTISING company Adshel has bowed to an online backlash against its decision to pull down billboards promoting safe sex after it was accused of homophobia.

More than 25,000 people joined a “Rip and Roll” Facebook support group after their safe sex advertisement targeting gay men was pulled down from Brisbane bus stops.

The Queensland Association for Healthy Communities started the group after Adshel – the company that provides advertising for Brisbane’s bus shelters – buckled to pressure from the Christian lobby and removed the ad featuring an image of a gay couple embracing, holding an unopened red condom packet.

Announcing their backflip this afternoon, the company said it had changed its mind because it did not realise it had been subjected to a campaign from the Australian Christian Lobby to remove the posters.

and this:

The “Homophobia – NOT HERE – Adshel Caves to Homophobic Pressure” Facebook campaign generated a big public response after Michael James – who appeared in the ad with his partner – asked the public to join their petition.

READ IT ALL HERE!

via PINK NEWS

By Christopher Brocklebank

The German city of Munich, where the Nazis raided gay bars in the early days of the Third Reich, is to have a new memorial dedicated to the gay and lesbian victims of the holocaust.

The location of the memorial is significant, as on 20 October 1934, the Nazis undertook a raid on the city’s gay bars. It was one of the first such incidents in what would become a full-scale systematic persecution of gay people under Hitler’s rule.

The memorial will form part of a new pedestrian development in the center of Munich and will be placed at the crossroads of Oberanger and Dultstrasse outside what was the Scwharzfischer (The Black Fisherman), one of the city’s most popular gay bars in the 1930s.

READ MORE HERE.

Rudolf Brazda, last of the Pink Triangles, tells his story.

via QAHC website
Media Release: 31st May 2011

Adshel Gives in to Homophobic Pressure and Removes Gay Safe Sex Advertisements

Adshel, the company that provides advertising in bus shelters around Brisbane, has today given in to pressure from the Australian Christian Lobby and removed a safe sex campaign featuring a gay male couple.

Adshel, Goa Billboards (where the advert is also placed) and the Advertising Standards Bureau have received complaints from a clearly orchestrated campaign from a well organised minority to have the advertisements removed.

The advert has been released by the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities* (‘Healthy Communities’) as part of our Queensland Government funded HIV prevention and sexual health promotion work with gay men.

The ‘Rip & Roll’ advert features a gay male couple (fully clothed) in an affectionate embrace holding an unopened condom packet. The campaign logo “Rip & Roll” is featured with an unbranded condom in its packet. It is accompanied with the strap-line ‘A safe sex message from Healthy Communities’ and provides our web address and 1800 line.

“We are deeply disappointed by the behaviour of Adshel in removing the advertisements, without even notifying us and without proper reason” said Paul Martin, Executive Director of Healthy Communities.

“The advert is in no way explicit or offensive to the average Queenslander. The complaints claim that depictions of gay people and discussion of sexual health are not appropriate for the general community. We reject these claims outright.”

“2010 saw the highest number of people diagnosed with HIV than at any time since testing began in the mid 1980s. 65% of these diagnoses are among gay men. Now, more than ever, it is important that we get the safe sex message out to Queenslanders, particularly gay men, wherever they may be.”

“The advertisement is quite conservative when compared with other public advertisements for a range of commercial products and previous sexual health campaigns by the Australian and Queensland Governments.”

“The Australian Christian Lobby has used homophobia dressed up as protecting children to have an important public education campaign removed. ACL’s Queensland Director Wendy Francis has previously been criticised and forced to apologise for sending out a homophobic tweet likening gay marriage to ‘legalising child abuse’. They are now trying have gay people erased from the public sphere.”