Gay Police Association banned from using Christian hate crime advert

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An advert by the Gay Police Association has been banned after they were found guilty of making false claims that Christians were responsible for a sharp rise in 'hate crime' attacks on homosexuals.

The organisation caused outrage witth an advertisement using images of blood and the Bible as the background to claims of a 74 per cent increase in attacks.

However, the advertising watchdog today rules that the GPA breached codes covering truthfulness, accuracy and offence.

The Advertising Standards Authority(ASA) said the GPA failed to back-up its startling figures of an increase in hate attacks. While it had unfairly implied that Christians are driven by religious motives to hate and abuse homosexuals.

The ASA has banned the GPA from running the advertisement again and ordered it not to use statistics that it cannot back-up.

The advertisement appeared in the 'Diversity Supplement' of the Independent newspaper, under the headline: 'In the name of the Father'. The text read: 'In the last 12 months, the Gay Police Association has recorded a 74 per cent increase in homophobic incidents, where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator.

'Verbal abuse and physical assault against gay men and women is a criminal offence and should always be reported to the police...'

The wording was dressed up with powerful imagery, including the Bible and a pool of blood - implying the attacks were violent and that Christians were largely responsible.

The claims and imagery were based on 250 calls to a helpline the GPA runs, which deals with a wide-range of incidents and inquiries.

However the ASA found:

• The GPA failed to provide evidence backing up the claims of an increase in attacks.

• Used images of spilt blood to give the impression that all the incidents involved violence. This was not true.

• Falsely implied Christians were responsible for the incidents it was highlighting. In fact, even the GPA admitted that around a quarter of allegations involved Muslims.

The ASA said: 'The leading implication of the ad was that Christians were the perpetrators of the reported incidents. Because of that implication, we considered it likely that the ad would cause offence to those readers who were Christian.'

It added: 'We have told the GPA to ensure future campaigns were not presented in a way that could cause undue offence and also reminded them that they should ensure the use of imagery did not send misleading messages to consumers.

'We asked them to ensure any statistics could be substantiated and reminded them to show supporting data to the ASA upon request.'

The advertisement drew 553 complaints, which is a record for any advertisement this year. Critics, who included Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, argued the police body would never have attacked Muslims or used the Koran in the same way.

Many hundreds of individuals plus bodies such as the Evangelical Alliance, Christian Watch, the Trinitarian Bible Society, The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches and the Bible Theology Ministries made formal complaints.

Miss Widdecombe, a Christian who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993, said the advertisement seemed 'a deliberate attempt to stir up hate against Christians.'

It was subsequently investigated by the Met police's domestic violence and hate crime unit. However, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to sanction a prosecution.

Chairman of the GPA, Paul Cahill, a Met chief inspector, complained he received offensive and obscene emails after the advertisement first appeared in June.

The GPA said it had never intended to describe all followers of religion as homophobic and that the advert was meant to be 'thought-provoking'.

While prosecution has been ruled out, the officers involved could still face some form of disciplinary action following a on-going review by the Met police's Directorate of Professional Standards.

 

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