Ad Spotlight: Honey Maid

And their awesome response to the hate mail: 

Read more here. 

American Airlines Urges Veto of Arizona Discrimination Bill

Doug Parker, CEO of the New American Airlines, just sent this letter to Arizona governor Jan Brewer:

Richard Branson: No Business With Ugnada

In a recent blog post, Sir Richard Branson condemned Uganda for recently passing a law that severely criminalizes homosexuality. Originally dubbed the "Kill the Gays" bill, the death penalty was ultimately dropped from the law, but it does call for life imprisonment in most cases if found guilty. In his post, Branson says "the dreadful witch hunt against the gay community and lifetime sentences means it would be against my conscience to support this country." He also urges other businesses to take a stand by not doing business with Uganda. Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill was supported by Tony Perkins, president of the "Family Research Council" in the United States. 

Beyond Better: A Manifesto for Queer Youth

Here's an outstanding video that was made by the students of Margaret Himley's Queer Writing class at Syracuse University last year. The course is part of Syracuse's LGBT Studies minor (which I proudly hold), the first of its kind in the United States.

Anti-Gay Direct Mailers Flood Maryland Households

If you live in Maryland or know somebody who does, please send them here to easily voice support to their delegates for marriage equality. The "National Organization for Marriage," which should just be called the national organization for Heterosexual-Only Marriage, has launched a vicious scare tactic direct mail campaign. The mailers include lies such as "Imposing Same Sex Marriage Has Consequences." I've said it 1,000 times and I'll say it again- legalizing same sex marriage never has and never will impose a church to marry anybody. It simply legalizes CIVIL marriage licenses which are government issued and currently only available to opposite-sex couples. Tell your friends. 

Hate Crimes: Do You Give a Damn?

New from Cyndi Lauper's Give a Damn Campaign:

We Remember...

NOM's New TV Spot... Have Your Barf Bag Ready

This ad is crazy and scary.

Mormons Buy Themselves a Makeover

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is rolling out a new multi-million dollar advertising campaign to rebrand mormons as your kind, All-American next door neighbors. That's right, apparently they won't just take away your rights, they'll bake you a pie too. TV commercials are already running in nine test markets across the country, and a new microsite, mormon.org, was recently unveiled. 


"We hope [Americans] see us as friendly, charitable, and giving to others," said Scott Swofford, the director of mormon.org. Yes, really.


No word yet on the cost of the campaign, but if it's any fraction of what they spent to try and take away the happiest moment in life for millions of Californians, we can expect it to have quite a hefty price tag. 

Campell's Soup Situation Gets Even Uglier

-PLEASE SEE ABOVE UPDATE REGARDING THIS STORY-

Request Foods, the Campbell’s Soup affiliate that teamed up with the “Family Research Council” to run this discriminatory ad advocating against civil rights, is an even dirtier company than we thought. Thanks to a tip from a BrandFabulousness reader, I learned that the president of Request is a guy named Jack DeWitt, who has a long history of contributing toward anti-civil rights causes, and is even rumored to have ties to Eric Prince of Blackwater Security. Isn't it amazing that Campell's would have any ties whatsoever to such an inhumane company that would sponsor this piece of garbage? Especially considering Campbell's excellent track record with the LGBT community?

Hawaii Governor Vetoes Civil Unions

It's a sad week for so many in Hawaii who have been fighting since 1993 just for the separate and unequal institution of a civil union. Yesterday, governor Linda Lingle vetoed the state's civil union bill that had passed in both houses in Hawaii by solid margins. 



Bigotry Wins: Hawaii Gov. Lingle Vetoes Civil Unions from Joe Jervis on Vimeo.

Florida "Family Policy" Council Purposely Uses Wrong Photo To Mock Adoptive Couple

This is unbelievable. A Christian group in Florida with the deceptive name of "Florida Family Policy Council" has made a deliberate attempt to ridicule a lesbian couple involved in an adoption case. After the lesbian couple was granted adoptive rights, the group used the photo on the left in their press materials about the case. That photo is the first thing that comes up when you do a google image search for "ugly lesbians." The actual couple in the case is the beautiful pair on the right, South Florida trade-show executive Vanessa Alenier and her partner, Melanie Leon. 

What can we do about this?

1. Share this story as widely as you possibly can to shed light on this phony and malicious organization

2. Give them a piece of your own mind at http://www.flfamily.org/contact_us.php

And remember, it's a Christian group, so choose your words accordingly.

The full story can be read here. 

Cindy and Meghan McCain Pose for The NOH8 Campaign

Cindy and Meghan McCain, wife and daughter of Arizona Senator and 2008 republican Presidential nominee John McCain, have posed for the NOH8 campaign. The NOH8 campaign uses photography to show public opposition to proposition 8, which revoked equal marriage rights in California following a popular vote. Here are the photos:

Frightening: Focus on The Family to Air Super Bowl Ad

This is unbelievable. Focus on the Family, one of the most dangerous and despicable organizations in existence, will be joining the ranks of some of the country’s most respected and wealthy marketers by airing a TV ad in the upcoming Super Bowl. The organization has survived largely over the past several decades on its ability to brainwash middle America into thinking that gay people are sinful and can be changed. Because of this, I hold them accountable for countless suicides of LGBT children and teenagers in the U.S. Anybody who's seen the movie "For the Bible Tells Me So" has seen this first hand.

Anyway... they're actually spending upwards of $2.5 million on one Super Bowl spot, which supposedly will be focused on their anti-abortion views. $2.5 million. $2.5 million? Yes, $2.5 million. Forget about doing the Christian thing and helping out those in need in Haiti. Focus on the Family is spending $2.5 million on a Super Bowl spot. 

Be scared. If you've seen how your rights can be voted on and taken away like they were with prop 8, you should be very scared right now. What's next from them in 2011? An ad against gay marriage? Adoptive rights? Why is it that in 2010 such a hateful organization that has caused damage of such drastic magnitude can have that much money to throw away? Can you imagine if a white supremacist group raised that much money in the name of bringing back segregation? Hey, it could happen. Majority rules, right?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but keep in mind how powerful this group is. The Human Rights Campaign is the largest group in the country advocating for LGBT equality, and they have 750,000 members. Focus on the Family has 2.3 million. Scared now?

What can you do about it? Vote. Come out. Speak out. Get involved. You'll regret more the things you didn't do when you're dying than the things you did do in life.

More about their Super Bowl ad is here.

What's going on in Buffalo?

Christopher Rudow's recent murder is likely the latest in what's been a string of anti-gay hate crimes in Buffalo. As somebody who used to live there and wait tables at a restaurant in the Walden Galleria, this is shocking. What's going on?

Illinois GOP blasts ad calling Senate frontrunner gay

This is Andy Martin, the Republican Illinois Senate candidate who aired a radio ad questioning the sexuality of his primary opponent (and U.S. Congessman) Mark Kirk. During the advertisement Martin says that there is a “solid rumor that Mark Kirk is a homosexual.” It goes further to say that Kirk is part of a “Republican Party homosexual club” and that Kirk should come clean about these accusations. 

In a written response, the Illinois Republican Party disavowed the statements made by Andy Martin: "His statements today are consistent with his history of bizarre behavior and often times hate-filled speech which has no place in the Illinois Republican Party. Mr. Martin will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican Candidate by the Illinois Republican Party."

Kirk campaign manager Eric Elk issued a statement saying the ad "is degrading to the political process. The people of Illinois deserve better."

D.C. Anti-Marriage Equality Ads Stir Up Debate

You saw the story first here on Brand Fabulousness. Now Queerty has continued the conversation, raising the question by saying that "no self-respecting black or Latino-American would tolerate advertisements suggesting their rights should be up for a vote. So why should gays?" They have a point. Check out their coverage and all the comments here.

The Companies Behind the Hate

A fascinating article was recently published in the New York Times on the marketing companies behind anti-gay campaigns such as Proposition 8:

By JESSE McKINLEY

Published: December 12, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — As the political battle over same-sex marriage plays out in state capitals across the country, several California companies have emerged as the go-to players for opponents of the marriages.

One of the companies, Mar/Com Services Inc., lists its business address here in San Francisco, a city well known for its large and politically active gay population. When Maine residents opposed to a new law permitting same-sex marriage decided earlier this year to challenge it, they hired Mar/Com to do the production work for the television and radio advertisements.

Of the $2.7 million spent to pass the Maine measure, about 75 percent flowed to companies in California, according to campaign disclosure documents. And while large chunks of that money were subsequently paid out to television and radio stations in Maine, California companies billed hundreds of thousands of dollars for consulting work, phone lists, printing and other services.

Central to this cottage industry is Schubert Flint Public Affairs, a company based in Sacramento that headed the winning campaign for Proposition 8, a 2008 California ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage. Frank Schubert, the company’s president, said it was “not like we took the California campaign and photocopied it and took it to Maine, but we took some of the things we learned.” He said same-sex marriage is not “what our firm is devoted to,” but rather “is one area that has been very active in the last couple of years.”

Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, hired Schubert Flint to develop radio advertisements in New Jersey and New York and put together an advertisement featuring Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California USA, who has voiced her opposition to same-sex marriage. The National Organization for Marriage has fought against same-sex marriage efforts in Maine and New York — where a bill to legalize the unions was defeated this month — as well as in New Hampshire, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

“Other political consultants have also had success on this issue,” Ms. Gallagher said in an e-mail message. “But Schubert Flint Public Affairs is a highly regarded firm with a winning track record.”
Jesse Connolly, the manager of the unsuccessful campaign to uphold same-sex marriage in Maine, said the California influence was profound. “I think it’s pretty clear that Frank Schubert and his vendor friends have decided there’s big money to be made in these fights,” Mr. Connolly said in an e-mail message. “It was Schubert on the stage election night being cheered. The consultant from Sacramento.” Mr. Schubert’s firm was paid more than $325,000 for its work and expenses on the Maine measure as its consultant. About $84,000 was paid to four other California vendors regularly used by Schubert Flint, including a company that makes advertising door hangers.

The company that received the most money, according to campaign disclosure statements in Maine, was Mar/Com, whose president, Bill Criswell, appears to also be the president and chief executive of Criswell Associates, a San Francisco advertising and marketing company. Mar/Com, which was formally incorporated as Marketing/Communications Inc. and lists its current business address as a rented mailbox in downtown San Francisco, was paid about $1.6 million byStandforMarriageMaine.com, backers of the same-sex marriage repeal, though Mr. Schubert said most of that money was passed on to television and radio stations. “When the money goes from the client to Criswell, the vast percentage of that money — 85 percent plus — is then channeled to the stations,” Mr. Schubert said in an e-mail message.

Criswell has been strongly criticized by some liberal bloggers in San Francisco who say it is inappropriate for a company based here to be involved in overturning gay rights. “San Francisco company Criswell Associates really earned their money yesterday, as they were successfulin their campaign to strip away the rights of Maine’s same-sex couples to marry,” one blogger, Eve Batey, wrote on SFAppeal.com the day after the Maine vote. “Stop shyly hiding behind a P.O. box, come out and take a bow!” Mr. Schubert said that his company and his clients write the advertisements, and that Mr. Criswell “executes them as we have scripted and directed.” “He does not do the creative and decide what is in the ads — we do,” Mr. Schubert said. Mr. Criswell did not return phone calls.

The company is not the only one involved in the Maine campaign that has kept its involvement quiet. Campaign disclosure documents show payments of nearly $150,000 to a company, Public Policy Strategies, doing business out of a mailbox in Stateline, Nev., on the California border. A corporate filing for Public Policy Strategies in Nevada shows no officers listed for the company except at a rented office in Zurich. Calls to that office were answered by an answering machine, and messages were not returned. Mr. Schubert said Public Policy Strategies was an “East Coast pollster” that wanted to keep its identity secret because companies had been subject to harassment and boycott threats from gay rights advocates for working against same-sex marriage. “I’m not going to blow their cover,” Mr. Schubert said.

Talentless Eminem is at it Again With Another Anti-Gay Song

(MTV.com)

Late Thursday, a pair of brand-new Eminem tracks from his upcoming Relapse: Refill album hit the Internet, and while both are filled with his trademark lyrical irreverence, a line in one of the songs — "Elevator" — is raising more than a few eyebrows.

In the track, Em jabs at former 'NSYNC member Lance Bass and a pair of former "American Idol" contestants, Clay Aiken and Adam Lambert, all of whom have said they're gay. While the actual wording of the lyric is in question, here's what Eminem appears to be rapping, according to several sites, including ThisIs50.com:

"Sorry Lance, Mr. Lambert and Aiken ain't gonna make it/ They get so mad, when I call them both fake/ It's all these f---ing voices in my head, I can't take it/Someone shut that f--king baby up, before I shake it."

However, as gay-news site Towleroad.com has noted, "fake it's" sounds phonetically like "f----ts," a similarity that they claim is anything but coincidental, given the rapper's previous history with the word.

"Eminem cleverly avoids using the word 'f----ts" in his new song 'Elevator' when referring to Adam Lambert and Clay Aiken, replacing it with the words 'fake it's,' " site founder Andy Towle writes in a post. "Of course, phonetically, it sounds just like 'f----ts.' "

Contacted by MTV News on Friday, a label rep for Eminem had no comment, and official lyrics for the song were not available at press time.

At the moment, Lambert seems to be leaning toward the less provocative lyric. On his Twitter account Thursday night, Lambert wrote, "Wow, Eminem mentioned me in a song?! I must be doing something right!? Even if he used the 'F word,' whatever," then followed that up with a second tweet, which reads: "Oh, he says 'fake it.' My bad."

In 2001, Eminem drew the ire of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation over his use of gay slurs on songs like "Kill You" and "Criminal" — from his The Marshall Mathers LP — which featured lines like "You f----ts keep eggin' me on/ Till I have you at knifepoint, then you beg me to stop," and "My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/ That'll stab you in the head/ Whether you're a f-g or a lez."

GLAAD called the lyrics "homophobic" and "hate filled," and protested outside the Staples Center sin Los Angeles during the 2001 Grammy Awards, where Eminem was nominated for a number of awards, including Album of the Year. During the show, Em answered his critics by performing a now-famous duet with Elton John, which ended with the two embracing and Eminem giving the finger to the crowd.

In the lead up to the 2001 Grammys, Moby also famously called Eminem "a homophobe," which Em responded to by referring to the DJ/Producer as a "36-year-old, bald-headed f-g" on the song "Without Me," and threatening to fight him during the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. Eminem said in interviews at the time that the content of his songs shouldn't be taken literally, and told MTV News' Kurt Loder,"I think that some people are a little too uptight, and take things a little bit too seriously."

Contacted by MTV News on Friday, a spokesperson for GLAAD declined to comment on the song, but did say our request had been forwarded internally.

LA Fitness May Have Some Explaining To Do...

A gay man says an employee at the newly opened LA Fitness near Love Field in Dallas twice called him a “faggot” on Sunday.

The man, 36-year-old Jason Evans, said he’s notified the gym’s management and plans to file a complaint with the city of Dallas, which has an ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination in public accommodations.

“This is about justice,” said Evans, a member of both the Cathedral of Hope and the Turtle Creek Chorale. “It’s about hate and homophobia and it happened right here in our community, in a gym where a majority of the male members are gay. This is something that I’ve never done, but at 36, I’ve just had enough. I want the community to know what happened to me. Once it happens to me, it happens to all of us, we all take the hit.”

Read the full article here on Instant Tea (Dallas Voice blog)

CONTACT INFO FOR L.A. FITNESS DALLAS-MOCKINGBIRD LN @ LEMMON:
4540 WEST MOCKINGBIRD LANE
DALLAS,  TX   75209
(214) 453-4899