'Home and Away' screen second lesbian kiss

Home and Away will proceed with screening a second lesbian kiss, defying outraged parent and conservative groups, reports the Herald Sun.

The controversial storyline, which sees policewoman Charlie Buckton (Esther Anderson) embark on a romance with local deck hand Joey Collins (Kate Bell), has caused outrage in Australia among conservatives who have blasted the plot as sexualised and inappropriate for the show's 7pm PG-rated timeslot.

Speaking to gay website samesame.com.au, Channel Seven head of creative drama Bevan Lee said: "There'll be another one in a few episodes' time. I think that clearly shows Channel Seven is not backing away from these kinds of stories.

"The thing that saddens me, as a gay writer, is that a beautiful six-week story has been reduced to a facile argument about six missing seconds of screen time.

"What is a beautiful lesbian storyline has now been hijacked by interest groups, and it will now make it harder for us to do this in the future."

The first kiss, which went to air in Australia last Tuesday, drew in 1.194 million viewers, a spike of 58,000 viewers from the previous episode.