London mayor axes ads that suggests homosexuality can be cured

c. 2012 Religion News Service LONDON (RNS) London's mayor has axed an ad campaign spearheaded by two conservative Christian groups because their ads suggest homosexuality is a disease that can be cured through prayer.

The groups Core Issues Trust and Anglican Mainstream made posters reading "Post-gay and proud. Get over it!" and had planned to plaster them on the sides of London's iconic double-decker red buses.

The slogan mimicked a recent drive by the pro-gay rights group Stonewall, which used the line, "Some people are gay. Get over it."

The Christian groups' campaign had been scheduled to cover the sides of buses for two weeks starting next Monday (April 16).

But the British capital's mayor, Boris Johnson, stepped in to ban it. "It is clearly offensive to suggest being gay is an illness someone recovers from," the mayor said in a statement on Thursday. "And I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses."

Core Issues and Anglican Mainstream both fund "reparative therapy" for gay men and lesbians to "cure" them of homosexuality.

This campaign would not have been the first time London's buses have been used in a religious war of words. Two years ago, atheists launched a similar offensive with a bus slogan reading: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy life." Christian charities responded by posting their own rival ads on the buses.