An ice cream company has been banned from using an ad showing two priests about to kiss just a month after being ordered to pull a campaign featuring a pregnant nun.
The latest Antonio Federici ad, which appeared in Look magazine, showed two priests in full robes eating from a tub of ice cream ‘in a seductive pose as if they were about to kiss passionately’, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.
Accompanying text read: ‘We Believe in Salivation’.
Defending the ad, the company said it did not mock Catholicism but ‘reflected the grave troubles they considered affected the Catholic Church’.
Antonio Federici was a Catholic company, but would continue to produce advertising that challenged the Catholic Church while it believed it remained troubled, it added.
Upholding six complaints about the ad, the ASA noted the ad used the text ‘We Believe in Salivation’ in reference to the taste of the product and to the image of the priests.
The ASA said: ‘We considered the portrayal of the two priests in a sexualised manner was likely to be interpreted as mocking the beliefs of Roman Catholics and was therefore likely to cause serious offence to some readers.’
It ruled that the ad must not appear again and told Antonio Federici to ensure future ads were not likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
Last month, the ASA banned another of the company’s adverts showing a heavily pregnant nun standing in a church holding a tub of ice cream and a spoon, with text stating ‘Immaculately conceived’ and ‘Ice cream is our religion’.
The ASA said the ad, which appeared in The Lady and Grazia magazines, was ‘making a mockery’ of the beliefs of Roman Catholics.
from The Daily Mail

FLORIDA – Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has announced that he won’t appeal a court decision to overturn the state’s three-decade ban on homosexual adoption, but the head of a conservative law firm says this is not the last word.
Late last month, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to uphold a Miama-Dade judge’s 2008 ruling that “no rational basis” existed for the ban. But according to Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, the case should have been appealed to the state Supreme Court.
“The fact of the matter is [McCollum has] listened to wrong advice by people who are trying to count heads at the Florida Supreme Court, wondering whether they have enough votes,” Staver suggests. “But the fact of the matter is if they don’t have enough votes then, they certainly have already abdicated the fight now by not appealing this.”
That means homosexual adoption is now legal in Florida, but the Liberty Counsel founder notes that the ruling is not the last word as he plans to ask the 2011 legislature to pass a similar law and protect Florida’s children.
“Children should not be placed in a homosexual household,” he contends. “Recent studies have indicated that children raised in a homosexual environment are more likely to engage in homosexual activity at an exponentially increased rate, and the Centers for Disease Control recently came out with a study that said one in five homosexual men are HIV positive.”
The attorney says that means the adopted children are being introduced and indoctrinated into an unhealthy and sometimes deadly lifestyle. Staver further points out that homosexual parenting permanently precludes children from having a mother and a father.
from One News Now

Related Post: Court Calls Ban on Gay Adoptions Unlawful

Sacha Baron Cohen / 'Bruno'

When will people learn that it’s probably not a good idea to sue Sacha Baron Cohen. More than 15 months after “Bruno” came and went from theaters, a gay cameraman sued the actor today claiming he was assaulted by Baron Cohen and crew at a Prop 8 rally in 2008.
Mike Skiff, who filed the suit for unspecified damages in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims he was injured when the “Bruno” filmmakers deliberately incited a riot at the Prop 8 rally by carrying “Yes on Proposition 8″ signs and egging on the participants “to enhance the dramatic effect of what they may capture for their film,” according to the complaint.
Skiff, who says he regularly films gay community events, claims he was confronted and prevented from filming the rally and, in the process, was injured. Defendants are Baron Cohen, director Larry Charles, Scott Berendez and production outfit Cold Stream Prods. Universal, which released the film, is not a defendant.
“Bruno” and, especially, Baron Cohen’s previous film “Borat,” have produced several lawsuits brought by unwilling participants (or willing participants who didn’t like the end product). But Baron Cohen has had a pretty strong litigation track record, in many cases getting cases tossed based on California’s free-speech anti-SLAPP law. Recently, a woman who sued claiming a “Bruno”-related stunt put her in a wheelchair ended up seeing her case dismissed after Universal produced footage of the alleged assault.
Will this new lawsuit be more successful? The complaint alleges causes of action for assault, violation of civil rights and inciting a riot.
from The Hollywood Reporter
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Prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges against three of the 11 men charged in the sadistic gay-bashing gang attack in the Bronx.
Bryan Almonte, 17, Steven Carabello, 17, and Brian Cepeda, 16, were exonerated in Bronx Supreme Court and released from jail after the district attorney’s office admitted the evidence was insufficient.
“After a thorough review of the evidence, there is insufficient evidence to prove criminal conduct beyond a reasonable doubt,” Bronx Assistant District Attorney Theresa Gottlieb told Justice Steven Barrett.
“I’ve never been so happy,” Cepeda told his family after his release. “It feels good.”
“They were innocent all along and we’re so happy they’re free,” said Alva Cepeda, his sister.
Prosecutors originally said the three teens were members of a homophobic gang known as the Latin King Goonies who savagely beat four victims and sodomized two with wooden objects during a robbery and gang initiation.
But the criminal complaints against the three – who spent nearly three weeks in jail – had few details of their involvement.
“These guys are not Goonies – they just got caught up in something carried out by other people,” said Almonte’s girlfriend, Paola Suarez, 14.
Also Tuesday night, Luis Garcia, 26, was indicted on robbery and gang assault charges in the case.
from The New York Daily News