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MPs yesterday asked the Broadcasting Standards Authority to defend one of its most controversial decisions from last year, that the South Park "Bloody Mary" episode was not indecent or offensive.
Several MPs on the commerce select committee questioned authority chairwoman Joanne Morris about the programme, which outraged many viewers. Catholic groups in particular objected to the show's depiction of a menstruating Virgin Mary.
The show screened on C4 in the wake of controversy about the publication of cartoons satirising the prophet Muhammad and objections by the Catholic church to another C4 show, Popetown.
"The principle of the South Park decision is that to offend people's religious beliefs, in itself, is not a breach of broadcasting standards. The Bill of Rights' protection of free speech outweighs that," Ms Morris said.
United Future MP Gordon Copeland said he struggled to understand how the South Park episode had met the authority's requirement that programmes should be in good taste and not indecent.
Ms Morris said the standard for taste had been carefully refined over many years, and shows such as South Park were at the "hard end" of the topic.
"The way it treated the Catholic faith and icons of the Catholic church was disrespectful, hence we acknowledged it would be very offensive to many people. But if you took that to be your standard for breach of broadcasting standards, it would mean many, many things that are currently acceptable and are broadcast would not be there. That freedom of expression is a very serious protection in our society."
There has been an appeal against the South Park decision and a High Court hearing is scheduled for May.
"It will be interesting to see what the court says about that," Ms Morris said. "We will benefit from that. We believe we got it right, but it will be really interesting to see what the court says."
She said while the number of complaints was dropping they were more complex. "Maybe people are less startled at what they are seeing on TV and are less inclined to complain. Maybe it reflects that people can't be bothered to complain."
