Proof that Homosexuality Harms Kids

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the attacks on Campbell’s Soup by the American Family Association, after the soup company produced a series of ads featuring two lesbian moms and ran them in the Advocate.

Now, the AFA is urging its supporters to see if their children’s schools participate in Campbell’s 30-year-old “Labels for Education” program, whereby the company makes donations of educational equipment to schools in exchange for soup labels collected by parents. To date, the company has donated over $100 million worth of merchandise. If schools participate in the program, the AFA says, parents should ask them to stop, because the company “openly supports homosexual marriage.” (Never mind that marriage is never mentioned in the ads, and the ads were targeted at an LGBT audience. Not that it should matter even if they were in a mainstream publication.)

Finally we see: Without any other proof that homosexuality harms kids, the AFA has decided to cause that harm itself by cutting off much-needed donations of resources to schools.

Waiter, there’s a bigot in my soup . . . .

(Thanks, Good As You.)

Google, YouTube, and Sperm Donation

What do Google, YouTube, and sperm donation have in common? The founders of the blockbuster Internet companies, along with Sherron Mills, the founder of Pacific Reproductive Services, a lesbian fertility clinic and sperm bank, were recently named top San Francisco innovators by 7×7 magazine. Read more about it at 365gay.com. (You can also read my older interview with Mills here.)

Working Mother L-Moms Breakfast in New York

I’ve been graciously invited by Working Mother magazine to give the keynote speech at their first-ever L-Moms & Allies Breakfast on January 21 in New York City. If you live in the greater New York City area, you are more than welcome to attend. I’d love to meet you there.

The only catch is that the event is aimed at employees of large corporations, law firms, etc., and there is a $150 admission fee. If you work at a big firm and have an LGBT employee group or a diversity committee, see if they’ll sponsor you. You can attend as an individual, too, but you’ll have to pay the fee yourself.

Working Mother, if you don’t know them, puts out an oft-cited yearly list of Best Companies for moms, and has been a strong leader in diversity. I’m very pleased they are reaching out to our community.

I’ll be speaking about ways that companies who are already broadly supportive of LGBT rights can take the next step in support of their LGBT employees, in particular, lesbian moms and bisexual women parenting with another woman. If you have any thoughts about the topic, please leave a comment.

More details and registration info are on the event Web site. Here’s the official event description: Read the rest of this post »

Subaru Supports Lesbians, Posts Profit

Quick: Name the car brand most often associated with lesbians.

That’s right, Subaru, the only car company “with a specifically pro-lesbian track record.” Its Forrester was “a lesbian icon from day one,” and the company has long been marketing on The L Word.

Next question: Name the only major automaker to post a yearly sales increase for 2008.

That’s right, Subaru.

Coincidence? Read the rest of this post »

Worst PR Pitches of the Year

I get a lot of e-mail from PR firms wanting me to blog about their products. I usually give them a glance, having once myself managed public relations for a dotcom. I figure it’s good karma. Still, some of them are so clearly off target it makes me laugh. Here are a few gems I’ve received over the past year. Names removed or changed to protect the guilty.

I saw your website’s page and felt that you have a wonderful resource which can be of interest to users on my website who are looking our for born again marry life partners. I have a site that provides best profiles of Christian matrimony, Indian born again, catholic & Christian believers. I would greatly appreciate a link from your site to mine.

Not that one can’t be deeply Christian and lesbian. I just figure that if this was a site for LGBT Christians, they would have specified. In this case, I’m guessing they wouldn’t really accept our type.

According to UrbanDictionary.com—manscaping is “male grooming below the belt.” But now, a NY-based CEO has taken that term to a whole new level. Meet Jane Doe, CEO/Founder of [Company]— a product that claims to ‘color the hair down there.’ According to Jane, sales to the male demographic are up 15% this year—a projected 4% increase in just one year. So does this prove that manscaping is on the rise??

I’d love to link you up with Jane to discuss this ‘manscaping’ trend and the various options that are out there for men to take care of their ‘hair down there.’

Hmm. Think I’ll forward this one to Bil. Read the rest of this post »

Lesbian Moms, Mmm, Mmm Good

Campbell Soup is the latest company to realize the value of marketing to the $650 billion LGBT market—and specifically, to lesbian moms. They have run a two-page spread for Swanson’s broth in the Advocate, featuring two lesbian moms and their young son. The women, Lea Forant and Carolyn Montgomory, are owners of Café Forant in Manhattan, and apparently use Campbell’s Swanson chicken broth in preparing many of their Christmas Eve dishes.

The conservative American Family Association has already sent an e-mail to its members declaring “Campbell Soup Company embraces homosexual agenda.” The Advocate itself then covered the controversy, as did advertising trade journal AdAge (where you can see a large version of the ad).

So far, Campbell, which scored 100% on the HRC Corporate Equality Index, is holding strong, and says they will have further ad placements in the Advocate. No word from the moms on their reaction, although the Café Forant Web site notes that Forant is a die-hard Red Sox fan in New York. She’s tough, that gal. I don’t think the AFA will phase her.

I admit, I make most of my own soup, and don’t buy a lot of cans, but I do sometimes stock a few for emergency use. You bet this is going to affect my purchase decisions. Campbell’s also owns the Pepperidge Farm, Prego, V8, and Pace brands, which means I can justify buying more Milano cookies and support an LGBT-positive company at the same time.

You can express your support to Campbell’s by writing to Douglas R. Conant at Campbell Soup Co, Campbell Place, Camden, NJ 08103, (800) 442-7684 or (800) 257-8443, douglas_r_conant@campbellsoup.com, or by using the feedback form on the Campbell corporate website. (There’s also a separate form for Investor Relations.)

Take the LGBT Consumer Index Survey

The folks at Community Marketing have launched a survey for their second Gay and Lesbian Consumer Index. I’d like to encourage all of you to take it and contribute your perspectives as parents (or prospective parents) in our community. All information is confidential and will not be sold to third parties or used for marketing purposes by Consumer Marketing.

Last year’s Index was the largest LGBT consumer study ever conducted, with over 22,000 participants, 46% of whom were lesbians. Unlike many lesbian and gay surveys, this one separates the responses of gay men and lesbians, providing useful insight into the differences between these parts of our community. I’ll quickly add that yes, the bisexual and transgender parts of our community should also be included in surveys like these, and I hope they will be in the future.

I know many of us abhor advertising, but I firmly believe our consumer spending has driven much progress in LGBT rights. Corporate America is, by and large, far ahead of the U.S. Government in offering anti-discrimination protections and recognizing our relationships, parental status, and healthcare needs. Gathering demographic and marketing information is the first step in expanding corporate awareness of our marketing power. Complete the survey while you’re watching the Olympics, and it will be painless.

We’re Not Snickering

Yet another reason to go to the candy-free checkout lane in the grocery store:

Mars, Inc./Masterfoods has decided that homophobia sells Snickers bars. In a new clip from AMV BBDO London, an effeminate speedwalker is chased by Mr. T, who shoots Snickers bars at him with a Gatling gun, shouts “It’s time to run like a real man!” and tells him to “Get some nuts!”

Pam has more on this, and Bil suggests, “Get some nuts, apologize, and make one hell of a large donation to the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Shooting at gay people isn’t funny – it’s a hate crime.”

This is Mars’ second homophobic ad in recent memory. A Super Bowl ad of 2007 showed two men accidentally kissing as they ate the chocolate confection, then being so repulsed they engaged in an aggressive display of masculinity. One alternate ending offered to Web site viewers showed one man attacking the other with a wrench. Joe.My.God has republished an open letter from Advertising Age critic Bob Garfield to John Wren, CEO of advertising agency Omnicon, criticizing the mega-agency for a string of homophobic ads it has produced in recent years.

Contact Snickers if you’d like to tell them what you think.

Ad embedded after the jump. Read the rest of this post »

Is Wal-Mart the New FDA?

Is the mega-retailer playing doctor with all of us? Bil Browning of Bilerico fowarded me an interesting article from Forbes that asks this question in relation to Wal-Mart’s announcement that it will stop selling baby bottles containing the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA has been linked in some studies to cancer and other medical problems. If you’ve been around the parenting blogosphere for the past few months, chances are you’ve read about this.

The FDA, however, says that bottles with BPA are still okay to use. A campaign against BPA, although it has a grassroots feel (with some scientists warning against the product as well), seems to be having an effect, though. Many retailers, including the big W, are pulling products that include the chemical, even though there seems to be no consensus on whether the amount of BPA in bottles is enough to do harm. (I also think it’s an open question whether the substances replacing BPA plastics will be found to be harmful as well.)

The Forbes reporter, Marc Gunther, asked a Wal-Mart spokesperson, however, “why the company is removing a legal product, which may or may not be dangerous, while continuing to sell cigarettes, which are incontrovertibly harmful,” to which she responded “We sell products our customers want to buy.” Gunther asks, “How, exactly, did Wal-Mart become the new Food and Drug Administration?” and “Is this any way to make judgments about public health?” Read the rest of this post »

Will You Support McDonald’s Now that the Ultra-Right Hates Them?

The American Family Association is calling for a boycott of McDonald’s restaurants, claiming that the company is giving “the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage,” according to Box Turtle Bulletin.

Normally I’d be more than happy to urge people to support a company that supports the LGBT community, especially when they’re under fire from the right. Supporting McDonald’s, however, conflicts with some very basic feelings I have as a mother, though—namely, that kids should learn good eating habits.

Good for McDonald’s if they are supporting the LGBT community. I saw a group of Mickey D employees in corporate t-shirts at the San Francisco Pride March last weekend, so I assume there’s some truth to it. Still, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, even if we share common values in a few instances.

Besides, if McDonald’s was really earnest about courting the community of lesbian moms, wouldn’t they offer hummus-and-sprout pita pockets or some such? (Yeah, yeah, stereotypes. I know.) Or put little Dottie and/or BuddyG action figures in their Happy Meals?