On June 25, an ad for gay and lesbian health services featuring a male Latino couple (lovers in real life) was pulled from bus shelters in the Bronx. Infinity Outdoor, the company that leases those spaces from the city, had objected to the text, which read: "I'm not gay but I sometimes have sex with other guys." Even more ominously, the city's transportation commissioner, Iris Weinshall, complimented Infinity for yanking the ad. "We feel that good taste can supersede the First Amendment," Weinshall said.
My, what an ... interesting view on Constitutional law for a public official to have. No wonder this country's in the state it's in.
The ad in question is awfully complicated in its own right. I mean, I do understand the concept that Latino men who have sex with men don't see themselves as gay; the same situation obtains with many black men who have sex with men. That said, the ad itself would be problematic for those people; wouldn't they think, "Well, if I'm not gay, why would I go to a health resource specializing in problems of gays? That's not me." I understand the purpose of branding from the business point of view for the consortium, but wouldn't it have been more effective to simply put the one sentence and the nonlexical phone number alongside the men's picture?
Of course, the differences in approach don't matter, do they? The ads aren't going to be seen by anyone else because since aesthetics take priority over the Constitution, they've been taken down. And none of New York's city council seem to feel that the Constitution is worth defending, or rather, that the Constitutional rights of some people trying to do good are worth defending.
(I cannot imagine what it would be like to come out on a billboard.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
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12/19/2001: vive la france
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