11:20am UPDATE: Adshel responds to the controversy. Read the company’s statement in full here.

On Wednesday night I was walking down the street with my best mate when we saw this ad on a bus stop. Needless to say we got onto discussing how society and its acceptance of the LGBT community was moving forward. We spoke too soon…

In 24 hours Adshel, the company that provides advertising in bus shelters around Brisbane, had given in to pressure from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) and removed a safe sex campaign featuring a gay male couple.

The Central Telegraph reports that Adshel, Goa Billboards, and the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) had received complaints from the well-organised group to have the advertisements removed.

ACL’s State Director for Queensland, Wendy Francis says the campaign to have the ad removed was “a massive groundswell of people power,” despite the fact that there was only 47 complaints made.

The ACL Director added that the health ad went “against prevailing community standards to introduce sexuality to young children through forced exposure in public.”

The advert had originally been released by the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities (QAHC) as part of their Queensland Government funded HIV prevention and sexual health promotion work with gay men.

“We are deeply disappointed by the behaviour of Adshel in removing the advertisements, without even notifying us and without proper reason,” said Paul Martin, Executive Director of Healthy Communities.

“The advertisement is quite conservative when compared with other public advertisements for a range of commercial products and previous sexual health campaigns by the Australian and Queensland Governments,” he adds.

“The Australian Christian Lobby has used homophobia dressed up as protecting children to have an important public education campaign removed. Wendy Francis has previously been criticised and forced to apologise for sending out a homophobic tweet likening gay marriage to ‘legalising child abuse’. They are now trying have gay people erased from the public sphere.”

The ‘Rip & Roll’ advert (pictured) features a fully clothed gay male couple in an affectionate embrace holding an unopened condom packet. It is accompanied with the strap-line ‘A safe sex message from Healthy Communities’.

Michael James, one of the models featured with his partner, is calling the removal of the ads “blatantly homophobic” and had started a Facebook event protesting Adshel’s decision, which reached over 5,000 members overnight and is growing steadily.

In just a few hours since the ad’s removal word travelled internationally with numerous publications sharing the news, with it even gaining the attention of celebrities such as singer Amanda Palmer, who turned to Twitter to share disappointment: “Extremely lame. HIV ads pulled from Brisbane bus shelters due to homophobia.” Her tweet has now been re-tweeted countless times.

I think Wendy Francis will get quite the shock when she wakes up this morning and realises what she’s started.

Here’s a few ways YOU can help:

Contact Adshel and demand that the adverts be put back up in their original locations.
Phone: 07 3250 8200
Fax: 07 3257 7776
Email: via website http://www.adshel.com.au/who/contact
Write: Suite 19, Plumridge House, 36 Agnes St, Fortitude Valley Q 4006

And don’t forget to join the facebook event Homophobia – NOT HERE – Adshel Caves to Homophobic Pressure.

Thanks Wendy Francis, not only have you brought attention to the intolerance of the LGBT community, but you’ve also brought attention to safe-sex in the process, and with Brisbane Pride starting this week, you couldn’t have picked a better time.