home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- CHICAGO (AP)-Its creators call it art with a message. But when a
- poster showing kissing men and women was displayed on city buses,
- two politicians said freedom of speech had gone too far.
-
- "Where will we draw the line in terms of this homosexuality
- -heterosexuality thing?" said city Alderman Rogert Shaw, who said
- he would introduce an ordinance banning the AIDS awareness poster.
- "Is anything going on in this country now [acceptable] under the
- guise of free speech?"
-
- About 80 of the posters, which depict three couples - one heterosexual,
- one lesbian and one gay - each locked in a romantic kiss, were displayed
- on buses and at transit stations....
-
- The transit authority was sued last year for refusing to post another
- AIDS awareness poster it deemed "too black oriented."
- After the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, the authority
- began displaying the ads, said John Hammell, who directs the ACLU'
- s AIDS and Civil Liberties Program in Chicago.
-
- Shaw said he planned to call a special City Council meeting to discuss
- his proposed ordinance, which would bar depictions such as that in
- Gran Fury's poster.
- "This poster has nothing to do with the cure of AIDS," he said. "
- It has something to do with promoting a lifestyle, which I object to."
- State Representative Robert Regan, a Republican, said Tuesday
- he would reintroduce legislation in the Illinois General Assembly
- that would bar such displays of sexuality. A similar bill failed
- this spring....
-
- -THE TENNESSEAN
-