I’ve got two items I can’t wait to tell you about today:

1)  Campbell Soup Stands Up for Equality – Thanks to Campbell Soup for standing firm (at least so far, let’s not forget how Ford Motor Company caved to far right pressure).  Campbell has placed an ad in The Advocate, a very popular gay magazine, mind you, for one of their products, Swanson’s Broth, showing a very ‘every day’, normal looking family sharing a moment together.  The family includes a lesbian couple (one of whom is a chef) and their son.  Campbell has normally been known as a conservative marketer but it appears they are becoming more inclusive in their marketing; they even claim they will be placing more ads in the Advocate.

Why am I taking time to point the Campbell Soup ad out to you? There are many reasons I could point out, for the sake of brevity I’ll try and state what I think are three of the most important ones.

• Campbell’s act is one more step in putting inequality behind us (After all, folks, doesn’t American have more ‘pressing’ problems to deal with than harassing other citizens – that is GLBT’s – who are just living their lives?).  Campbells is as ‘All American’ a brand as any.
• Secondly, realize that conservative groups, such as the American Family Association (AFA), are already challenging Campbells (or shall I say, ‘bullying’ them?) to ‘drop the gay agenda’ and ‘remain neutral in the culture war’.  Campbells is taking on some degree of risk here.  So – please consider getting in touch with them somehow to thank them for standing up for human rights.  Please also ask them to ‘stand firm’.  There is no culture war here, other than the one a small group of very ‘to the right’ religious individuals and organizations are deluding themselves in waging.  BTW, these groups may win some battles but they will never win the war, because I believe, deep down, that most Americans are more fair-minded than these groups.
• Another important issue is the pure economic one.  We need to get very clear what companies don’t discriminate against a group of people and which do.  We need to vote with our wallets and purses on this one, too, as consistently as we can.  DO buy from GLBT-friendly companies; DON’T buy from ones who aren’t.  Need to educate yourself on this issue? It’s easy – just go to the Human Right’s Campaign website and download their buying guide.

When will people and organizations such as the AFA ‘get it’ that there is no ‘agenda’ other than normal people (who just happen to be GLBT) trying to live their lives?  Thanks to Campbell for recognizing that…umm, umm, good!

Click here for an article in Advertising Age that talks more about the Campbell’s Soup ad.

2)  Here’s a chance for you to sign a petition asking Barack Obama to reconsider his choice of Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation – A friend sent me one of those petitions, this one from Care2.com, asking Barack Obama to revoke his choice of Pastor Rick Warren for the inauguration invocation.  I don’t really know how effective Care2 is, or, if the Obama is at all interested in reconsidering, but if you haven’t signed one of these petitions yet and you want to, click here, it’s easy to use the ‘stock’ language and/or add your own.

By the way, there is an interesting video on the same petition page, of Rick Warren, filmed before the November 4th election, urging voters to vote for Proposition 8.  Here Warren uses guilt, spurious historical information and religion to try and convince listeners to vote for Proposition 8.  How’s that for ‘thinking for yourself’ and separation of church and state?

Yes, it’s true, Warren has every right to state his personal beliefs.  But, is his church receiving non profit status?  Makes me wonder if he really should be allowed to do some of the type of ‘pastoral care’ he is engaging in, ie: his obvious mixing of church and politics.  In fact, some of Warren’s exact choice of words is why the founding fathers of America, in their wisdom, decided to create three branches of government, to help balance out inequities such as what is occurring against the so-called two percent of the population that is GLBT.

BTW, we all know that, while ten percent of the population may not be GLBT as Alfred Kinsey postulated years ago, I’m sure you’ll agree the actual number of GLBT’s in American is more than two percent!

In fact, tactics like Warren’s give more credence to the suggestion that the only way to put all of this nonsense to bed (so we can focus on REAL problems like global warming, AIDS, the economy, treating our wounded vets, etc.) is to COME OUT!!!  That includes family members and loved ones of GLBT’s!

When America sees how many of their neighbors, favorite entertainers, family members are GLBT, it will be harder to claim we are so ‘insignificant’ and it will be harder to ignore us…

Happy day before XMAS eve!

Barb

Tags: gay marriage in California, proposition 8

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Be Ready for Love, Committed Relationships, Family and Social Support, Lesbian Couples, Lesbian Dating, Marriage Equality, Parenting and Lesbian Relationships, Pre-Commitment-Is this the Relationship for Me?, Single Lesbians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.