HONGKONG - May 11, 2008
The Hong Kong High Court has overturned a Broadcasting Authority ruling that punished Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) for not providing an opposite viewpoint when it aired "Hong Kong Connection: Gay Lovers" in which a gay man and a lesbian couple discussed same-sex marriage and the challenges they face. The programme was aired on TVB Jade Channel on Jul 9, 2006.
Under pressure from bigoted Christians, the Broadcasting Authority made a widely criticized ruling in January 2007 that the RTHK-produced program was "unfair, partial and biased towards homosexuality, and having the effect of promoting the acceptance of homosexual marriage."
Misguided conservative Christian groups ignored Christ's teachings of tolerance and forgiveness (and his non-teachings about anything gay-related) to claim that the program had discriminated against them.
An impartial judicial review was sought by one of the documentary's subjects, Joseph Cho, after the Broadcasting Authority announced its ruling would require all broadcasters to include the views of gay-haters in every future TV program mentioning LGBT subjects.
Justice Michael Hartmann shot down the biased complaints saying that the Authority was discriminatory and had restricted the documentary subjects' freedom of speech in its decision.
In defending freedom of speech for homosexuals, he further cited bird flu and child slavery as examples of issues that simply did not have an alternate viewpoint.
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