Three Lithuanian TV stations refuse ad from gay activist group
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| English: A man with a rainbow flag at the Gay Sin parade in New York City, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
A video produced for Lithuanian television stations by homosexual activists is being investigated by an ethics watchdog after TV three different TV stations refused to air it.
“The video contains elements that need to be evaluated by experts. It will happen not earlier than September,” Zita Zamzickienė, Lithuanian Journalistic Ethics Inspector, said in a statement to Baltic News Service (BNS).
The video spot was created by the Lithuanian Gay League, the country’s leading homosexualist lobby group, affiliated with the politically powerful ILGA Europe.
BNS reports that three major television stations, LNK, TV3 and Lietuvos Ryto TV, have refused the ad under concerns that it may violate the Law on the Protection of Minors Against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information that prohibits promotion of homosexuality. TV3 asked the office of the ethics inspector to determine whether the video breached the law.
Concerns were raised in particular about the video’s reference to “various family models.” "Since we have to ensure that all ads aired by our channels comply with the existing legislation, we always ask to specify and guarantee their compliance with legislation, whenever legal doubts arise,” said TV3 spokesman Vaida Vincevičiūtė.
Last year Ethics Inspector Zamzickienė ruled that another video, commissioned by the same activist organization, promoting “Gay Pride” events, could be legitimately refused airing on Lithuania’s national broadcaster, LRT. A spokesman for her office said that the law “does not provide for any obligation” for broadcasting information.
The Law on the Protection of Minors Against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information was passed in June 2009, coming into effect the next year. Lithuanian MPs have been markedly resistant to various efforts to undermine it.
Other efforts to defend traditional family values are moving forward in the country.
In the spring session this March, Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius introduced an amendment to the Code of Administrative Offenses, banning speeches, audiovisual tools, or advertisements that contravened the constitutionally defined family values.
This was identified by the Lithuanian Gay League as an effort to end the annual push for a “Gay Pride” like event, the March for Equality. A similar amendment was proposed for the Law on Public Meetings, and another to the Law on Protection of the Rights of Child would prohibit adoption of children by homosexual partners.
Last month, Parliament blocked an omnibus bill that proposed changes to the procedures for the public registry of marriages on the grounds that its basic premise would have established the “gender identity” ideology in Lithuanian law. MPs sent the bill back to committee, asking that the “gender recognition” wording be removed.
In June, MPs voted to keep in place an amendment to the Criminal Code that allows public criticism of homosexuality and “transgenderism” without penalty. The amendment’s wording, passed in October 2013, says, “Sexual behavior and sexual practices, beliefs, or opinions criticism or discussion of, or persuasion to change the behavior, practices, beliefs and attitudes, is not per se considered bullying, stigmatization, incitement to hatred, discrimination or promotion of discrimination.”
