11AM: National MP Murray McCully is out of touch with the middle New Zealand he's expressed outrage on behalf of over a safe-sex ad featuring a kissing male couple, say the NZ AIDS Foundation. McCully said the government was promoting homosexuality as a lifestyle option for young people in a Ministry of Health-funded “Hubba Hubba” ad campaign targeted at youth and encouraging the use of condoms for sex. There are two versions of the TV spot, one with a kissing heterosexual couple and another – shown late at night and less frequently – featuring a gay couple. “The gay hubba hubba advertisements have attracted remarkably few complaints since they began to air in early December,” says Rachael LeMesurier, AIDS Foundation executive director. “The NZAF is pleased that the Ministry of Health has been brave and honest enough to acknowledge that New Zealanders have a wide diversity of sexuality and that it is crucial an STI prevention message reaches out to all of these communities by being inclusive.” The self-described “rampantly heterosexual” McCully also said a health message could have been put across without such a graphic depiction. “Mr McCully seems prone to exaggeration if he can describe a very short kiss as a "graphic depiction of a sexual encounter,” says LeMesurier. “It is interesting that Mr McCully seems to be out of contact with the middle (heterosexual) New Zealand he claims to represent.”
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 17th February 2005 - 12:00pm