Censorship was one method of gaining publicity for ulterior political issues. A review of the main censorship debates from 2004 show that Christian lobbyists succeeded in publicising key agenda items. The success of these campaigns cannot be measured by banned material, but in the way these groups monopolise public interest through censorship campaigns.

One of the first censorship crusades to gain publicity in 2004 was against the movie Irreversible, a Spanish film that deals with the lives of people affected by a rape. Fred Nile, NSW MP and leader of the Christian Democracts Party(CDP) led the protests demanding the film be banned. A timeline of Nile’s campaign can be followed using the press releases at the website of the NSW Branch of the CDP.

Niles’ initial press release against Irreversible on 19 Feb had a broad scope. Although explicit sex scenes are mentioned, Nile’s primary concern is over violence, asking "Is there no film with violence of impact high enough to be refused classification?" Note that in this first press release, it was all forms of violence – not just sexual violence – that form the basis of his complaint.¹

The next time Irreversible was mentioned was a month later. However, the focus of this press release was the affects of pornography on young men. At the time, rape was a hot media topic; the Bull Dogs rugby team were denying rape allegations in Coffs Harbour and young gang rapists were on trial in Sydney. Nile alluded to these incidents, and then hypothesised on their connection to movies like Irreversible.²

On 23 March this sentiment was reiterated, almost verbatim, in a press release that focuses on the banning of Irreversible. This time, the focus on violence generally, switched to the specific parts of the movie that include sexual violence, mainly the rape scene. In his protest, Nile connected seemingly unrelated items:

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to recognise that with the break down of the traditional family unit, young men aren’t getting the much needed role modelling [sic] and extrinsic reinforcement of appropriate social attitudes. Many have no positive Fatherly/Mentor/Educational input into their lives and turn to their peers and media to form their opinions of women.³

At this point, Nile brought the lack of male role models into the debate on sexual violence in movies. Not surprisingly, only days earlier Nile had publicly supported an amendment to the sex discrimination laws to allow for male teacher scholarships.⁴

Included in his fight for censorship is the lament for the "traditional family unit", a catch phrase for the Religious Right. Translation: heterosexual, Christian, conservative, patriarchal marriage.

Under the guise of a discussion on censorship, Nile was able to promote several key agenda items – rape, male role models, divorced families - while presenting himself publicly as an anti-violence campaigner.

Paradoxically, amidst his calls for the banning of Irreversible, Nile supported another violent movie. In his press release on the 27 February, Nile extolled the violent aspects of the movie The Passions of Christ claiming violence was needed for realism.⁵

If realistic depictions of violence are acceptable to serve a moral lesson, then surely a movie that describes the horror of rape should be commended rather than banned.

The Salt Shakers state they are a "Christian ethics group" but at their basis is a husband and wife team of anti-gay crusaders. Peter and Jenny Stokes have gained distinction for their extreme opinions. Their anti-gay stance is non-apologetic; they openly claim that homosexuality is a curable choice, a sin, and an abomination.

Their campaigns are supported by their website, which holds an archive of news for 2004. Broken into monthly web pages, the Feb/March page deals with three different topics related to homosexuality. The first discussed the gay summer events, such as the Sydney Mardi Gras. Another opposed same-sex couple adoption. The final introduced their readers to The L Word, a television drama whose main characters are lesbians.

This initial posting encouraged readers to complain to Channel Seven asking the TV station to remove this type of programming. Their main concerns about the program are with the sexuality the show portrays:

This is about lesbians seducing each other, lesbian sex, having babies by donor sperm, more L sex, some hetero sex and a lot of mixed up ‘relationships’!!!!⁶

It wasn’t until late April that the Salt Shakers gained publicity for their campaign against The L Word. This was made possible by a calculated switch in tactics. The Salt Shakers targeted companies whose advertisement appeared during the program in an effort to put financial pressure on Channel Seven. Their protest finally reached the media when they disclosed that several companies had removed their advertising. A similar campaign was run against the show There’s something about Miriam, a reality show featuring a transsexual, but this campaign never received the same notoriety.

In actuality, the Salt Shakers’ claim of success, and subsequent media attention, were short-lived. Channel Seven reported that only one company had pulled their advertisement from the time slot because it did not fit the company’s demography. One of the initial companies the Salt Shakers named denied that they had pulled their advertising. When the claims of the Salt Shakers were debunked, the media quickly lost interest.⁷

However, the campaign against The L Word continued for the full fourteen weeks of the show’s season. By the end of May, the Salt Shakers claimed they had gained assurance from twelve companies that their advertisement would not appear on the program again. The same archival page has the first entry supporting the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill.⁸

By July, the campaign for the Marriage Bill had become the predominant issue for the Salt Shakers. Their website details names and address of who to contact urging readers to make submission supporting the Bill to the Senate committee. The only other news item lists the success of the Salt Shakers campaign against The L Word, claiming that twenty-six companies pulled their advertisement.⁹

Writing for The Age, Helen Razer questioned why the Salt Shakers choose The L Word. Although the Salt Shakers has rallied against other television programming with homosexual content, other more provocative shows, such as Queer as Folk, seemed a more likely target. Melbourne University associate professor Barbara Creed suggested that lesbians present a more contentious opposition to groups who uphold "traditional" families.¹⁰

In the context of the Marriage Bill, the campaign provided publicity to a group that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. It also proved that those seemingly outside the debate, namely corporations, were expected to make a political judgement of the programming they sponsor. And although the Salt Shaker’s claim was unsubstantiated and unlikely, it demonstrated, if only for its own supporters, that displays of homosexuality could be lobbied against successfully.

Unlike the CDP, Fred Nile, and the Salt Shakers, the AFA tactics are particularly effective because they do not argue their position through blatant Christian dogma; while the Salt Shakers use biblical references, the AFA speaks in terms of scientific evidence. Combined with their non-offensive name, the AFA has received some acceptance in the media as a group that lobbies for issues regarding the family. Yet the AFA has been found guilty of homosexual vilification and producing hate material against gays.¹¹

In the last year, the AFA have become one of the most publicised religious right groups, due in no small part to their efforts at censorship. In a four month period, at the zenith of the Marriage Bill debate, the AFA succeeded in making the head lines for no less than four separate censorship campaigns. While two were complaints about homosexual portrayals on television, two movie complaints successfully made it to the Review Board of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC).

Part of the AFA’s success in 2004 was its ability to gain support from the South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. When their initial application for review of the film Irreversible was denied in March 2004, the AFA appealed to Atkinson who used his status to demand a review. The AFA and Atkinson partnered a second time for the French film Anatomy of Hell.

In the press, the AFA’s central argument against Anatomy of Hell dealt with claims of child sexual abuse images. Damien Tudehope, the AFA’s spokesperson told The World Today, that it was the scenes of child abuse that contravened the OFLC classification guidelines.¹²

Outside the press, the purported scene of child abuse was a minor issue to the AFA. Their confidential four page submission to the Review Board spent only half a page discussing the issue of child abuse. The majority of the AFA’s objection related to depictions of actual sex between the movie’s two central figures; a gay man and a straight woman.¹³

After the classification was upheld, the Review Board released a document that gives further evidence of the AFA’s true motives. During the review process, the AFA was acknowledged as stating that:

Sexual activity was a "sacred" component in family life and explicit depiction of sexual activity, with a particular emphasis on such depiction that debase others, have or may have an adverse impact on marriages and the way that marital relationships operate.¹⁴

Why the issue of marriage ever entered the discussions over film censorship was never made clear. Clearly the AFA was not dealing with the content of the film but lobbying a type of morality that refuted the notion of homosexual unions; homosexuality was linked to sexual deviancy.

A statement on the Marriage Bill, written by the AFA’s president Bill Mulenburg, outlines the group’s position:

The same arguments used to justify same-sex marriages can be used to justify polygamy, incest, bestiality, group sex, and so on. Once the fundamental idea of marriage as one man and one woman is tossed out, any and all types of sexual activity become permissible.¹⁵

In the context of the Anatomy of Hell debate, the mainstream media never publicised the group’s radical views. Instead, the AFA gained undeserved recognition as a group that monitored child pornography and protected children from abuse.

If success was measured in banned media, then the Religious Right failed in 2004. Both Irreversible and Anatomy of Hell’s original classifications were upheld. In fact, it’s likely that these movies gained more viewers because of the surrounding controversy.

The Salt Shakers attempt to have The L Word banned was neither successful nor authentic. If anything, the Salt Shakers were revealed as fanatics when it was reported they had threatened a charity for the homeless whose free advertising appeared during the lesbian drama. The charity claimed they had received emails from the Salt Shakers stating they would "go to hell".¹⁶

The Christian Right also proved in 2004 that the protection of the public from seemingly harmful media was not their primary goal. Amidst his protests against Irreversible, Fred Nile commended the violence of the Passions of Christ because of its realism. Support was also given later in the year to the screening of the film My Foetus, on SBS. The AFA supported the viewing of this documentary that showed some graphic images of abortion. On the AFA website, one can view several articles related to this documentary. One article by the Herald Sun writer Andrew Bolt acknowledges the offensiveness of the subject matter: "We will be sickened. Horrified, even. But isn't that exactly why we need to see this film?"¹⁷ Here the issue of trauma was considered a justifiable outcome.

Yet like the very films and shows that gain notoriety through censorship, these Christian groups were successful in raising their own profile and their agendas. In this respect, 2004 was a year of great success for conservative groups; a Liberal government was reinstated, their cries for a religious political group was realised in Family First, and gay marriages were successfully legislated against.

God only knows what will happen in 2005.