The Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance is not to be fined for its television advertisements opposing homosexual marriage aired at the end of last year, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday, adding that society needs greater tolerance for opinions.
The commission made the decision after receiving about 2,600 complaints regarding the ads, which were aired between Nov. 30 and Dec. 2.
The commercials asked for “1 million families to defend marriage” at a rally on Dec. 3 last year.
They said that family values and relationships would fall apart if same-sex marriages were legalized.
Critics said that the commercials created misunderstanding about the issue of same-sex marriage and were produced to defame homosexuality.
The commission said that it first submitted the commercials and the complaints to a committee for review, which was formed by independent experts and representatives of civic groups.
The commission sought opinions on the commercials from each member of the committee.
It also consulted other government agencies, including the Executive Yuan’s Gender Equality Committee, and the ministries of justice, education and the interior.
None of the agencies said that the advertisements violated any regulations, the commission said.
NCC commissioners said that the alliance faces no penalty over the commercials.
NCC spokesperson Weng Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said that members of the independent committee were divided on whether the alliance should be fined.
Some said that the ads reflected the opinions of the alliance, while others said they contained false information that could mislead the public.
“We are aware that these advertisements contained exaggerated content and conveyed inaccurate information,” Weng said.
“Nevertheless, the commission ruled that no punishment is to be given in this case, as it is the commission’s belief that society would benefit from showing tolerance for different opinions,” he said.
“The decision was made based on the principles of respecting freedom of speech, balancing and tolerating diverse opinions in society and honoring gender equality,” he said.
Weng said that similar cases would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Controversies that arose from the case would be discussed at a forum in October, at which representatives from the media would be invited to comment on the issues, he said.
The commission particularly wants to hear from the industry on how to ensure that TV advertising funded by special-interest groups can be produced in ways that reflect gender equality and diverse social values, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching