Betty Crocker sits right up there with television’s June Cleaver as one of the icons of homemaking. How delightful, then, that General Mills, which owns the Betty Crocker brand, will be donating cakes to the first three same-sex couples to marry in Minnesota when it becomes legal to do so this Thursday — and that the brand is taking other steps to include same-sex couples in its marketing.

The wedding donation is part of the brand’s The Families Project, “a mission to understand what it means to be a family — so we can share the strengths that make every family part of a home.” The Web site explains: “Families are changing a lot. But they’ve still got one thing in common — the love that makes a home. At Betty Crocker, we believe that a family is a family, no matter how it’s arranged.”

That could almost be a line from The Fosters. And Betty Crocker explicitly includes same-sex couples in its “Home: The State of Family in America” report at The Families Project site. Go check it out and join in by answering one of their three questions about your family.

Thanks to David Badash of The New Civil Rights Movement for the heads up on this story. The original source, however, is Minnesota Public Radio, which has details about the kids of two of the couples — who of course helped their parents taste test and pick out the flavors.

It may seem frivolous to dwell on cakes, but cakes are second only to rings, I think, as symbols of weddings. An Oregon baker refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in February, causing national headlines and an offer from Food Network star Duff Goldman (of Ace of Cakes) to make them one free of charge. And in a non-wedding incident, an Indianapolis bakery refused to make cupcakes for a college LGBT group’s National Coming Out Day celebration — and got smacked with a reminder from the city about the local human rights ordinance.

Stay tuned for a post about my recent experience with Chevrolet, another all-American brand that is reaching out to the LGBT community. I’m telling you, if we have Betty Crocker and Chevrolet on our side, the right-wing has totally lost their argument that LGBT equality is un-American.

Also: Social justice through pastry? Yum.