New Zealand's Broadcasting Standards Authority has ruled TVOne's Breakfast show host Paul Henry's comments that gays are "unnatural" are not a form of hate speech. Hate speech complaint: Paul Henry Chatting with co-host Alison Mau on a live show last August about the issue of same-sex couples adopting children, Mau asked: "Why shouldn't same sex couples raise children just as well as mixed sex couples?" Henry replied: "It's not natural, is it? "It's not God's sort of natural and I'm not even religious, but it can't be, it's not, like, natural, is it?," he added. "Like you don't get a whole clan of cave bears that are all male because that just couldn't happen. It's not natural." One viewer texted in to agree with Henry. Mau read it out: "Good on you, Paul. It's not natural. Same sex [couples] couldn't have children naturally so they shouldn't be allowed to adopt them." Mau responded, "gosh, there's so many holes in that argument. Plenty of heterosexual couples can't have children, that's why they adopt. So your argument's just been blown out of the water." "It is unnatural," Henry started up again a short time later. "Although homosexuality is through all species," he added. "I don't know if it's through all species but many, many species. A lot of monkeys are homosexual. "The thing is, though, if you go to any animal park, and I've got to be careful what I say here, but if you go to any animal park, you will find monkeys being filthy with each other." A formal complaint "The damage that this type of homophobia does to these children is incalculable," complainant Ken Cage told the Broadcasting Standards Authority of Henry's remarks. "Limits must be put on free speech when what is said hurts and denigrates others, and starts to border on hate speech." But the BSA disagreed: "The Authority considers that on this occasion, particularly in the context of the entire discussion, the host's comments were not sufficiently vitriolic and lacked the necessary invective to reach the threshold for encouraging discrimination against, or denigration of homosexuals for the purposes of the standard," it said in its ruling on the issue. "While the host's comments about homosexuality were clearly designed to be provocative and would have offended some viewers, they were framed in a way that provided a forum for discussion and encouraged public debate about the proposed legislation reform," the Authority added. "Opposing views were clearly presented by his co-host, the two MPs interviewed, and in some of the viewer feedback," it concluded, deciding not to uphold Cage's complaint. Henry's recent comment about UK singing star Susan Boyle "looking like she's retarded" was upheld by the BSA, forcing Henry to make a public apology for the remark.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Monday, 22nd February 2010 - 8:34pm