Press Council rules on Court comments
The Australian Press Council (APC) has upheld a complaint against Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper regarding an anti-gay marriage column it published by former tennis champion Margaret Court.
The APC received numerous complaints about the column, titled ‘Priority is to protect marriage’, which appeared in the Herald Sun on January 25.
Complaints concerned Court’s assertion that homosexuality is “a choice” and that Australian society is on a steep moral decline, especially in relation to sexuality.
“Let me be clear. I believe that a person’s sexuality is a choice. In the Bible it is said that homosexuality is among sins that are works of the flesh,” Court wrote in the editorial.
“It is not something you are born with.
“My concern is that we are advocating to young people that it is OK to have these feelings.”
The Herald Sun responded to complaints that the article was offensive, incited homophobia and would aggravate problems of bullying and suicidal feelings amongst young gay people, by stating that it was “clearly an opinion piece and it was entitled to publish a variety of opinions”.
The APC concluded that the newspaper was entitled to publish the article, even though it was likely to cause widespread offence, provided that it gave opportunities for prompt and extensive expression of other views.
“As the factual assertion about choice of sexuality was very probably inaccurate and potentially dangerous, the newspaper should either have edited it or published accompanying rebuttal (preferably from an authoritative source),” the APC stated in its adjudication.
Whilst the print version of Court’s column was adjacent to a shorter opinion piece rejecting her views on homosexuality and the paper printed a further rebuttal by former tennis champion Martina Navratilova two days later, the APC noted that the online version, which is what at least one of the complainants saw, did not include a link to any responses and accordingly “did not provide an immediate and clear rebuttal of the assertion about choice of sexuality”.
Accordingly, the complaint was upheld on this ground in relation to the online version but was not upheld in relation to the print version.
You can read Court’s original article here.
I agree that this was a victory.
No-one would have heard, let alone cared, what that nasty old fart thought; if it hadn’t been for the Murdoch press needing to beat up a story.
Agree with Kyle above. At the end of the day, the offensive and inaccurate material has already been published and Margaret Court has not been stopped from making her evil allegations. Surely she should be prosecuted along with the newspaper?
And I thought Margaret Court was really just another one of Chris Lilleys’ characters in drag.
So glad this happened- but the rebuttal from Martina is clearly just them covering their arses after they’ve been caught out.
Newspapers monitoring newspapers works in some situations, but not in others.
And it’s okay Dave, Murdoch’s newspapers are all running at a loss… His financial plan is to keep pouring money into his newspapers while the others all eventually run out of money so he will have the entire market for himself- So don’t just reject the Sun, make sure you buy a paper he doesn’t own!
Fantastic. I complained about this article but never expected anything to come of it (but it seemed like a more productive choice than ranting about it endlessly to my girlfriend!).
Come on, it’s the Herald Sun; a Murdoch paper. Any publication that allows Andrew Bolt is already tarred with hate and vitriol, and the majority of readers are already supporters of such hate and vitriol.
whilst i hate margaret court and anyone who thinks like her, i do respect that a newspapers goal is to give unbiased reports of events and from that point of view publishing this utter crap was right. that being said this argument could only be used if the herald sun did that for all its issues, and it most certainly does not.
Nah Stuart, I’m heterosexual and I think it should read “Priority to protest arseholes”.
:P
The headline should have read, “Priority is to protect heterosexuality”.
Papal Knight Murdoch made money out of this hate. He should be held to account and jailed along with the Editor.
Being seen with a copy of the Herald Sun would be the ultimate embarrassment!
Big deal – what did the paper get, a slap ? Court still got away with spreading her religious sanctified message of hate. The best response here is for all reasonable people to boycott the Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper. Buy something else !
Good point Bipolar Bear. Why is it a water shed decison. Certainly is significant.
Harrah!
Makes me wanna dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4zm-Zo65ok
(Proud Margaret / Margaret Court Parody)
Wow – it is very rare for press councils to uphold complaints. This is quite a watershed decision.