THE National Secular Society (NSS) has accused advertising watchdog the ASA of “reintroducing the blasphemy law” following its decision to ban the Antonio Federici ice cream advert showing two priests about to kiss.
The Society, according this report, Â is calling on Communications Minister Ed Vaizey to investigate the the ASA’s decision to ban the ad which shows two men dressed as priests about to kiss with the strapline:
We Believe in Salivation.
In a letter to Vaizey the Society says that the banning of the “mildly humorous and satirical” ads was “sinister”:
We have now reached the stage where any reference to religion that is not completely reverential is immediately branded as ‘offensive’ and therefore unacceptable. This is an intolerable threat to freedom of expression that must be challenged.
The organization adds that banning the campaign for being offensive to Catholics on the basis of just six complaints equates to reintroducing the blasphemy law in Britain.
Terry Sanderson, NSS President, said:
The Advertising Standards Agency – which is elected by no-one and seems to be answerable to no-one – has reinstated the law unilaterally.
Anyone who has seen the Antonio Federici ads knows that they are mildly humorous, in no way threatening, abusive or insulting. It is entirely wrong that these advertisements have been banned by such an unaccountable body, which needs to be reined in.
The ASA had no comment.
It is the third ad campaign from the ice cream company that has been banned by the ASA. The others showed a pregnant nun eating ice cream and a nun kissing a priest.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
October 28th, 2010 at 11:26 am
See this report also:
http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....8978.story
October 28th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Could they not be con-joined twins?
And one of them has a very small but very ugly spider running up his neck…
October 28th, 2010 at 11:52 am
The definition of blasphemy is:
impious utterance or action concerning god or sacred things.
So how can the banning of this advert be blasphemy in through the back door?
This is about people not God.
October 28th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Salivation, not salvation. Look closely.
October 28th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
@Stuart – because the offence of *blasphemous libel* is not concerned with the dictionary definition of the word blasphemy. In the UK it was designed to prevent the “publication of material which exposes the Christian religion to scurrility, vilification, ridicule and contempt, and the material must have the tendency to shock and outrage the feelings of Christians.”
It was supposedly abolished in 2008. Banning this advert is very much an example of “blasphemy [law] in through the back door”
October 28th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Quite right. We wouldn’t want to offend the Catholics now, would we?
October 28th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
This is a disappointing decision by the ASA considering the Chairman of the ASA is Lord Smith of Finsbury better know as Chris Smith, ex and first openly Gay [Labour] MP. Looking at the list of other ASA council members and digging around you’ll find – not surprisingly – various religious associations. Was papabenny one the only 6 complainants?
October 28th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Before sending an email of complaint I had a look at the ASA rules, and found this which I intend to throw back at them
‘The fact that a product is offensive to some people is not grounds for finding a marketing communication in breach of the Code.’
Off to send them a mail next.
October 28th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Dammit, I forgot to keep a copy of my mail to the ASA to post on here. They promise a reply within 24 hours, and I will post their response here.
Might I suggest that other readers also send complaints.
October 28th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
It’s not exactly ‘reinstating a law’ as the ASA is an independent body and has no powers other than the agreement of the advertising industry and the media to follow its rulings.
And, in the case of a previous ad in this series, the agency decided to ignore the ruling.
October 28th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Usual disproportionate, knee-jerk hysteria from the religiots amongst us. Usual inane pandering to their sulking and offended sensibilities by the powers that be.
Can we just start an atheist revolution now, please? I’m getting bored of it all.
October 28th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
@Dave McKeegan Thanks for that clarification, it does shed another light on it for me.
October 28th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
It´s a very clever advertising campaign designed to get them banned, thus giving them more coverage than they would normally receive.
How many songs, films, books etc do you know of that immediately became extremely desirable once they were banned?
October 28th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
@David Anderson, I agree with that David. The defence given by the company was that they wanted to “Challenge the Catholic Church”, which is baloney…they wanted to create controversy and sell more ice cream.
October 28th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Nonsense! this has nothing to do with ice cream ad.
Just look at the two guys (gays?) and you know why they really hate this ad.
And I agree this was done just this way to create a controversy to get a lot of free advertisement.
October 28th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Funny that Christian sensitivity is taken into consideration, but what about non-Christians’ feelings when Mr. Ratzinger made his tour of the UK at the tax-payer’s expense?
October 28th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
It’s a crap advert but.
October 28th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I think its quite a witty advert, there is little enough fun poked at religion and if an advertising company want to push the envelope a bit – good luck to them !
Hopefully there will be a fuss kicked up over this and the advert will be shown – and lets hope some of the world’s more political and sinister supremist religions start getting the mickey taken out of them.
October 28th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
To quote from Papal Sin by Garry Wills, “In a survey of 101 gay priests, those ordained before 1960 remember their seminary as having been 51 percent gay. Those ordained after 1981 say their seminaries were 70 percent gay. Many observers suspect that John Paul’s real legacy to his church is a gay priesthood.”
OF COURSE the Vatican crime syndicate objects to an ice cream company drawing attention to an observable reality. It might find itself under pressure to defrock gay priests–leaving it with insufficient pushers to fleece the suckers.
October 28th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
I had to put up with Muller Rice using Nina Simone. They can bloody well put up with this.
October 29th, 2010 at 9:34 am
The ASA is so petty. Remember when they banned a new “Go to work on an egg” season “…because it wasn’t putting the right message across…”. The EMB caved, of course. Mrs Mary Whitehouse is alive and well and living at the ASA.
October 29th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Personally I find the ad off-putting because I don’t particularly like men in frocks, and I find the overt mutual sexuality of this particular pair unpleasant. Then there’s the “salivation” and the association with their bodily fluids that I don’t want to think about. When I see this advert, I don’t get anywhere near the ice cream. It just doesn’t work for me – and I like ice cream.
I don’t really give a toss about the religious angle.
Without looking back, who can say what brand the ice cream is?
October 29th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
As usual, the religious reich considers itself to be above the law and can do anything that furthers their sick agenda. Freedom of speech and thought is always banned by any religious group because those two items, by themselves, are fatal to any religion.
October 31st, 2010 at 11:52 am
I think the arguments of ‘backdoor blasphemy’ and ‘freedom of expression’ are irrelevant in this case.
Were these arguments used in response to a discussion of religion per se, then they would be justified, whether the original statements caused offence or not. This is offensive to christians however, and is unfairly gratuitious when used to sell a product.
November 8th, 2010 at 5:26 am
Salivation, not salvation. Look closely.