Press Release: 11 May 2006
The Society has written an open letter to Whitcoulls (NZ) congratulating its management for refusing to stock the “gay” magazine JACK. It has responded to the arguments put forward by Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, that sexually explicit NZ AIDS Foundation ads in the magazine promoting ‘safe-sex’ via condom use are in the “public good”.
OPEN LETER
Mr Warren Hunter
Senior Category Manager
Whitcoulls
Head Office
Auckland
Dear Mr Warren Hunter
We write on behalf of our Society’s national executive and membership concerning Whitcoull’s reported decision to refuse to supply to the public and/or stock copies of the homoerotic and sexually explicit magazine JACK that promotes sexual deviancy and perversion (sodomy) and unhealthy promiscuous homosexual ligfestyle. We congratulate your company on this decision!
However, based on what we have read in reports on the homosexual-lobby/activist website GayNZ.com, there is a suggestion that your bookshops might stock it if the publisher/supplier agrees to add a “R18” sticker to the opaque wrapping envelope the obscene and offensive magazine comes in.
Such a “restiction” notification by way of such a “sticker” has no real meaning defined in law. It is not of form of official classification. Such stickers are not official and are not issued by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). The publication must first be classified by the Classification Office as “restricted” before any official restriction label such as “R18” can be supplied to the distributer and/or “display conditions” imposed.
If Whitcoulls decides to stock stickered JACK magazines, using unofficial “R18” labels, we can be sure a legal challenge to your decision from the homosexual community will ensue. A homosexual activist/lobbyist may well submit the magazine to the Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, who is a self-advertising practising homosexual and his deputy, Ms Nicola McCully, an acknowledged practising lesbian, and their Office will issue a decision in due course that will put Whitcoulls on the map internationally!
Sadly, your company may well open itself to accusations of being “homophobic” if you require unofficial “R18” stickers to be added to JACK and following submission of the magazine, the Chief Censor will formally classify it “unrestricted”. If he does so, no supplier of the magazine to the public, has any authority in law to require it to be sold in a sealed opaque envelope or require the distributor to include warning labels on the publication for “nudity” “explicit sex” or “obscene content” etc.
Bill Hastings has already been reported by GayNZ.com as stating:
“….. “I understand that the NZAF [New Zealand AIDS Foundation] advertisement [in JACK] is part of a campaign to make condom use “hot,” which necessitates the use of aroused men. The wide dissemination of such advertisements amongst sexually active men, far from injuring the public good, actively promotes the public good and supports a public health initiative designed to save lives and millions of taxpayer dollars in health care. This is a significant factor we would have to consider if we were ever called upon to classify the advertisement or the magazine.”
See “Storm in a condom: Horny As gets stickered 11MAY06 – Jay Bennie
http://www.gaynz.com/aarticles/templates/features.asp?articleid=1311&zoneid=16
In other words, Bill Hastings argues that the proliferation and dissemination of NZAF adverts involving erect male penises in the context of AIDS awareness/’safe-sex’ advertising are “IN THE PUBLIC GOOD”. Such material cannot by his defiition be classified “restricted” under the legislation using HIS definition of the public good.
Our Society has been involved for over 30 years in the field of monitoring the decisions made by censors dealing with material deemed “injurious to the public good” and warning against the serious harm caused by exposure and addiction to hard core porn, magazines advocating promiscuous sexual lifestyles etc.
The magazine JACK, as you have correctly noted, is totally inappropriate as a publication for sale through your family-orientated bookshops. To stock such material with explicit homosexual content would do enormous damage to your family-store/good values image.
Our Society members will be pleased to learn, when the decision is finally made, that Whitcouls will not disseminate any such sexually explicit homoerotic material. The NZ AIDS Foundation has been assisted for too long at the tax-payers’ expense to advance its ineffective message regarding so-called ‘safe-sex’ practice. Its use of offensive sexually explicit content to promote its half-truths concerning condom use to the public, cannot be justified. The HIV/AIDS pandemic advances globally and the situation on NZ has deteriored to its worst level in recent years despite millions of dollare being poured into the NZ AIDS Foundation.
The Society will be monitoring bookshops that stock the magazine JACK on a regular basis.
We wish you well in the task of choosing good quality books and magazines to the public of New Zealand.
Please let us know asap of Whitcoull’s decision re the stocking of JACK.
Yours sincerely
SPCS National Executive.
See also: Gay mag pulled for condom ad
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