St Matthew's Church Auckland infers Jesus was an active homosexual
A complaint about an Auckland church billboard questioning whether Jesus was gay has been dismissed on the grounds it wasn't offensive.
The St Matthew-in-the-City billboard featured an image of baby Jesus in a manger with a rainbow coloured halo and the words: "It's Christmas. Time for Jesus to come out."
The complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority said the representation of Jesus was "akin to hate speech".
However, a decision released yesterday found the billboard's speculation about Jesus's sexual orientation did not breach advertising codes.
It was "prepared by a Christian church to promote debate within the Christian faith, as opposed to a deliberately offensive advertisement by an outside party for commercial gain, had been prepared with a due sense of social responsibility", the decision reads. The inference is that St Matthews was promoting that Jesus was homosexual, Jesus performed the sin of homosexuality. Hence, to infer that Christ was sinful prohibits Christ sacrifice as the sinless lamb of God. That would make St. Matthew not a Christian church not just liberal but a non-Christian sect worthy of damnation as it is another gospel.
St Matthew-in-the-City has frequently found itself in hot water with its Christmas and Easter billboards.
In 2011, the authority dismissed a similar complaint made about a billboard that featured the heads of two people in bed - Joseph and Mary - with the text reading: "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow."
