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The Ad Banned In Australia

You're not going to believe why Australian television won't air this public service announcement

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3jvinNcpPg&w=525&h=300]

That public service announcement is too hot to be broadcast on Australian TV:

FreeTV Australia, the industry group which represents the commercial free-to-air networks, earlier this week informed Dads4Kids that its annual Father’s Day ad, this year featuring a father singing his daughter a lullaby, would not be broadcast as it “likely contained political matter”.

According to The Weekend Australian, which first reported the story, FreeTV’s lawyers told the group that the ad had been “brought to our attention by the networks as potentially containing political matter”, with legal advice recommending the ad be changed to include a political “authorisation tag”.

But it’s a sweet little clip encouraging dads, pointing out that they play an important role in their children’s lives. That’s it. These ads have been run for free on broadcast TV channels in Australia, in the run-up to Father’s Day. But now, with gay marriage a touchy political issue, this has happened. The spokesman for the non-profit sponsoring the ads had this to say for the story:

“These television commercials are simply a gentle encouragement to Australian dads, and an affirmation that they are an important figure in the lives of their children,” spokesman Ben Pratt said.

“The adverts have been enthusiastically accepted and many TV stations play them all year long as a community service. They are always released in the lead up to Father’s Day. Unfortunately what is a simple Father’s Day message has now become a ‘political’ statement.

“It is extraordinary that this is where we have come to as a country; we can no longer celebrate Father­’s Day without being forced to look at it through the lens of the same-sex marriage debate. It’s a tragedy that a political motive is now implied in any mention of fatherhood. Not everything is about same-sex marriage.”

Not everything is about same-sex marriage. Oh, you poor naive man. Don’t you know that everything is always about LGBTs, and how every tradition and every custom must be discarded or reconfigured to suit them and their allies?

Progressives. They won’t stop until they’ve torn it all down. I’m so sick of this bullying.

UPDATE: A reader e-mails:

I think you underestimate, both in the posts and in the comments, the degree to which fatherhood, and the celebration of fatherhood really is political and really is anti-gay.

First, we know God is the Father from whom every family on earth is named. To celebrate strong, compassionate fatherhood is to celebrate, indirectly, the God progressives are determined to deny.

Second, it is a cornerstone of classical political thought that political structures are built upon the structure of the family. Celebrating fatherhood celebrates the idea of an authoritative judgment (not just power, a la Foucault). It celebrates political institutions rooted in nature, not human fantasy. This is, naturally, offensive to those who object to nature, or object to being authoritatively judged.

And last, and most importantly, gays and lesbians cannot be fathers. Not in the normal course of nature, at least. No amount of supreme court legislation can fix that. It is a good they cannot have, will never have. And it is a good they desperately desire. To celebrate fatherhood is to celebrate heterosexual procreation. Of course it’s anti-gay. Anything natural is.

It’s absurd, of course, that fatherhood should be sacrificed and the altar of gay rights, but it’s precisely because fatherhood is so political that it has to be that way.

Thank you for your patience. I don’t think it’s a quibble. Fatherhood is, perhaps, the greatest political weapon we have. It isn’t (politically) safe, as the writer said, but it’s good.

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