THE BRONX, New York, – Public service ads endorsing a gay health line were taken down from 40 Bronx bus shelters after numerous complaints were made about their sexual reference.
A public service ad that promoted a free health line for gays was pulled from several bus stops in the Bronx after people complained about it, according to published reports Wednesday.
The ad, paid for by the Bronx Lesbian and Gay Health Resource Consortium, showed two men, one with his arm around the other, above a caption that read, “I’m not gay, but sometimes I have sex with other guys,” and included a number for the health line.
The consortium’s officials said the ad was one of three they paid $19,000 to have displayed at 40 bus shelters around the Bronx for four weeks beginning Monday.
Lisa Winters, founder of the group, said the advertising company that maintains the city’s bus shelters, Infinity Outdoor, had approved the content of the ad along with two others, and posted them Monday morning.
But later that day, according to the group, a representative from the company called and said that the ad showing the two men had elicited several complaints, specifically about the ad’s reference to sex.
“It’s not at all an offensive ad,” Winters told The New York Times. “There are ads for ‘Sex and the City’ up all over the place. What’s wrong with these posters?” She said the ads featuring the two men were intended to reach men in the Bronx who do not identify themselves as gay.
The ads were replaced with the two other versions used in the campaign. One showed a woman in a business suit and was intended to reach lesbians, the Times said. A third showed a man by himself, with a caption saying that the man wanted to know how to help a gay friend get health care.
“It’s obviously on a case-by-case basis that we make these decisions,” said Dana McClintock, a spokesman for Infinity Outdoor. “We do our best to strike a balance between First Amendment rights and community concerns.”
According to the newspaper, McClintock said he did not know how many complaints were logged.
The Department of Transportation owns the shelters and contracts its ad business to Infinity Outdoor. Iris Weinshall, the city’s transportation commissioner, told the New York Post she agreed with the company’s decision to pull the ads.
“This poster was totally inappropriate, and we applaud the contractor for taking it down,” Weinshall said. “We feel that good taste can supersede the First Amendment.”
The same ads featuring the two men also are displayed inside city buses, and have not been pulled. Bus ads are controlled by TDI Worldwide, a company owned by Infinity Outdoor’s parent company, Infinity Broadcasting.
