Huffpost Gay Voices: Double Whopper Doublethink

I'm really getting tired of companies, politicians, donors and other entities using their support of LGBT rights -- something much easier to do these days -- as a way to pose as progressive, often as a PR move to blunt criticism of a bad record or even nefarious actions. And it's time that LGBT activists stop letting them get away with it. At this point, many of these entities need us more than we need them. Let's demand more.

The latest is Burger King, which only weeks ago unveiled "The Proud Whopper" to support LGBT pride -- receiving accolades from many LGBT activists -- but now isfleeing to Canada, buying up Tim Hortons, following other American companies engaged in so-called tax inversions, all to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Who cares if Burger King wraps its Whopper in the rainbow if the company is hurting the American economy, American taxpayers and American workers, including LGBT workers?

Michelangelo Signorile, editor-at-large, Huffpost Gay Voices.

You'd have thought this is just stating the extremely obvious, if we consider ourselves moral agents, not mere gay consumers.

Within the ideological framework of the gay media Signorile seems to be making a radical statement, though it should be as banal a truism as saying slavery is bad.

But Huffpost Gay Voices has continually acted like an over-excited cheerleader whenever a big business announces some crappy pro-gay PR stunt.

Note the 'Proud Whopper' link in the above goes to a story on USA Today, ignoring Huffington Post's knicker-wetting over this tokenistic total non-event - the rainbow wrappers were used in one store over one weekend, the press release went global - Burger King Supports LGBT Rights With 'Proud Whopper' And 'Be Your Way' Campaign.

You also get a photo gallery celebrating 25 LGBT-friendly products and companies; including such saintly megacorps as Gap, General Mills, General Motors, Safeway and Starbucks.

Please accept our sincerest hypocrisy etc.

Happy shopping!

Barilla Pasta Outrage: First They Came For The Lasagna...

The chairman of Barilla Group says his company will not feature gay families in advertisements for his products because he likes the "traditional" family. If someone disagrees, well, they can go "eat another brand of pasta."

Guido Barilla made the anti-gay comments during an interview with La Zanzara on Radio24 Wednesday. The radio host asked him why his company does not have ads with gay families.
"We have a slightly different culture," Barilla said, per a Huffington Post translation of the interview. "For us, the 'sacral family' remains one of the company’s core values. Our family is a traditional family. If gays like our pasta and our advertisings, they will eat our pasta; if they don’t like that, they will eat someone else’s pasta. You can’t always please everyone not to displease anyone. I would not do a commercial with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect toward homosexuals – who have the right to do whatever they want without disturbing others – but because I don’t agree with them*, and I think we want to talk to traditional families. The women are crucial in this." 

Activists are now demanding a boycott against Barilla, which is the world's largest pasta producer, according to Italy's Gazzetta del Sud. The protest became a trending topic on Twitter shortly after Barilla's remarks aired, with the hashtag #boicottabarilla. 

From Huffpost Gay Voices - the online home of boring bourgeois gay hysteria.

SHOCKING!
Naturally the united gay simpletons of Twitter have set it ablaze today.
Fuck knows how anyone who can get angry about something like this would cope if something really bad happened.
So a silly old man has said the sort of silly thing some silly old men sometimes say!
THIS IS EXACTLY HOW MUSSOLINI STARTED!!!
Is there an e-petition yet?
Has Dan Savage ordered us to boycott French red wine in protest?
Can someone knock up a poster of Il Duce Barilla with a Hitler moustache drawn on?
Should we be visiting our delightful Tuscan holiday homes in the near future?
Later this evening Fagburn will be protesting by pouring a tin of spaghetti hoops down the drain and then sending a photo of him doing it to the world's gay media.
Silence anyone you disagree with!
If you don't like what Guido has said buy another brand of pasta, that'll learn him, even though he said that's what he thinks you should do.
In fact, don't buy anything unless you've seen a gay dude in one of their adverts.
It's time to make a stand against these fascists who aren't very keen on having gayers in one of their crappy TV ads.
The revolutionary spirit of the Stonewall riots lives on.
¡No pastarán!

• Commercial Coset - an online compendium of LGBT-themed commercials from around the world. 
* NB This doesn't make sense. No idea if it's him or the translation.

Update: Actual - and non-ironic - Gay Star News' headline; 'Gay Hate Spaghetti'...

Update2: At last someone talking some sense, Barilla Chairman Doesn't Like Gay People: So What? J Bryan Lowder on Slate (though GB didn't actually say he didn't like gay people).
Good on the gay "movement"'s fetishisation of consumer boycotts (and corporate endorsements).

Readers' comments on gay sites are hilariously hysterical, predictably.

My favourite from The Advocate; "I had a few boxes in my pantry this morning. No longer."

Take that, pasta Nazis!

PS Some more brilliant reader comments by les enragés at The Advocate...

Money Money Money: Lies Lies Lies

The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is in better financial health than the rest of the country on average, a recent study found.
Not only do gay people earn more than the average American does, gay people are more likely to be employed, they have more money in savings and they are better at managing debt, according to a Nov. 14 survey of more than 1,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people by Prudential.
The average LGBT household earns $61,500 annually, which surpasses the average national household income by more than $10,000. Unemployment is also lower within the LGBT community. Only 7 percent of respondents reported to be out of a job, while the national average stands at 7.9 percent. When it comes to putting away money for the future, gay households save on average $6,000 more than the national average. Gay households also have $4,000 less in debt...

HuffPost Gay Voices.

There is only one true fact in the above - that the figures quoted come from a "study" by the Prudential.
The Pru are an insurance company and this is, effectively, an ad.
Do Huffington Post Gay Voices really think their readers are so thick they can't see through this?
Why would any company want to "commission a survey" and put it out as a press release if it wasn't serving their own interests?
And similarly, how can any journalist take any "research" seriously if it's part of a PR campaign?
The kiss-off/pay-off line comes at the end.
Despite LGBT people seemingly outstripping our straight counterparts everywhere else, apparently oddly we fall down at the last hurdle; "That said, only 14 percent of respondents indicated they feel well-prepared financially compared with 29 percent of the general population."
Well, there you go!

Here's another rewrite of a Pru press release on this on this CNNMoney.
It's titled Gay People Earn More, Owe Less.
Really?
If that's news to you too, that's because it's simply not true.
All reliable research on this subject - ie not PR puffery put out by a business and/or marketing group - shows the exact opposite; gay men earn less. *
Sadly, while Hoff Post Gay presents the above PR baloney uncritically, CNN Money has the decency to point out how "a recent Gallup poll of more than 120,000 adults conducted this summer actually found that LGBT individuals tend to have lower incomes and to be less educated than the general population."
Of course, CNN Money is not aimed at the gay community, but at the business community, so they reach a different conclusion from HuffPost Gay Voices.

Most will agree, however, that the LGBT community is a largely untapped -- and potentially lucrative -- customer base when it comes to financial planning because of the complexity of their finances and unique needs.
While many financial firms are beginning to take steps to cater to this group, Prudential found that the majority, or 63%, of respondents feel underserved by financial firms, saying that the financial industry's attention to their needs is below average.
"There absolutely is an opportunity here," said (the Prudential's) Meyer-Shipp.

*  See the exhaustive review of the literature,  Gay Money: The Truth About Lesbian & Gay Economics.

Update: Both Pink News and Gay Star News have regurgitated Prudential's junk "research" uncritically and without question. I despair!