ASA and its Inbuilt Bias against Traditional Marriage

John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor of The Telegraph, has published an article under the title -

"Gay marriage: Advertising watchdog accused of bias over Chairman's Campaign Video."

He explains that the Advertising Standards Agency has been accused of bias after its chairman publicly campaigned for gay marriage while it has placed advertisements from opponents of a change in the law under investigation.

The watchdog rejected calls for Lord Smith of Finsbury – the former Labour cabinet minister, Chris Smith – to resign last night but accepted that he had a “conflict of interest” on the matter and therefore would not vote.

ADVERT UNDER INVESTIGATION

It has emerged that the ASA is investigating an advertisement from the Coalition For Marriage (C4M), which campaigns against changing the law, following claims it is “offensive” to homosexual people.

Archbishop Cranmer, a popular political and religious blog, was asked to justify carrying the advertisements, which also appeared in a host of other media after 11 complaints to the ASA.

PRESSURE FROM THE LAW SOCIETY

It came on the same day as the Law Society banned a conference on marriage due to be addressed by a senior High Court judge because it did not promote same-sex marriage.

The advertisements carried on the Cranmer blog promoted the C4M petition, which has attracted more than 500,000 supporters so far, and polling figures suggesting that 70 per cent of people believe marriage should remain between a man and a women.

If the complaints are upheld the advertisement could be banned.

Yesterday Cranmer voiced disbelief after Lord Smith recorded a message for the “Out4Marriage” website, expressing his support for same-sex marriage.

“We have gained so much over the last 10 or 15 years and civil partnerships have been a major step forward but it still isn’t full equality and that is why I think this is a very important campaign,” he said.

“There is a personal reason too – as a gay man I would like to be able to marry.”

CALL FOR RESIGNATION

The blogger called for Lord Smith to resign, adding: “It is simply not possible for the ASA to assert impartiality and objectivity in adjudicating on matters relating to the promotion of traditional marriage.”

Colin Hart, campaign director of the C4M, said: “Cranmer raises some very important questions not least is has this frivolous and spurious complaint being investigated.

There is a political campaign and there seems to be a willingness on the part of the ASA to do its uppermost to clamp down on freedom of speech and debate in this country.

We should all be very worried about this investigation.”

A spokeswoman for the ASA said that there were “robust” processes in place to ensure that the decision on the complaint would be fair and impartial.

“The fact that [the advertisement] is under investigation does not mean that it will necessarily be upheld,” she said.

“Our chairman ordinarily does not vote, we have got 13 members of the council and the decisions are taken by them and our chairman does not ordinarily vote unless it is split.

There is a conflict of interest here so even should the decision have been split he would not vote.” 

Given the performance of ASA in the past, the outcome of this investigation will be worth watching!