Offensive T-shirt banned

The chief censor has banned a T-shirt that shows a sexually degrading image of a Roman Catholic nun and blasphemous language directed at Jesus Christ.

The top, advertising an album for British extreme metal group Cradle of Filth, also used Satanic images.

"I have to say, I can't remember seeing a stronger T-shirt than this one," chief censor Bill Hastings said.

Hastings said the office had banned other T-shirts, but the issue did not come up often.

"It's hard to know what to do with them, to be honest.

"If we were to make them R18, for example, does that mean you have to be 18 to wear it or do you have to be 18 to see it coming down the street?

"So generally with T-shirts it's all or nothing, it's unrestricted or banned, so the medium just doesn't lend itself to an intermediate restriction."

In its decision, the censor's office said a fair interpretation of the message on the T-shirt was that Christians should be vilified for their religious beliefs, and that women, including chaste and celibate women, could not stop themselves engaging in sexual activity.

The Society for Promotion of Community Standards president John Mills praised the decision as "bold, morally courageous and legally sound".

- NZPA