Homosexuals Kissing?? -- American Family Association Should Get Their Heads Out Of Their Gutters

The American Family Association (AFA) -- a self-proclaimed pro-family organization -- has issued an Action Alert regarding a Heinz company advertisement that supposedly "pushes" gay marriage.

The offending ad currently runs in The U.K. and AFA warns that it can be expected in the U.S. soon.

The Action Alert is posted to the AFA web site with copy of the video and an urging to call or write Heinz in protest.

I'd like to thank the AFA for sharing this video.

I never would have seen it otherwise.


Here is a link for others:


"Heinz ad pushes gay marriage and family, features homosexuals kissing"


At first view, I could kind of see the tones that AFA was talking about, and I wasn't sure how to react.

Then I gave it a second and third view, and a totally different realization came to light.

The ad-writer had played a substitution game on a scenario involving the product and its intended uses.

The commercial message portrays that a middle-class mother who uses the products featured -- New York Deli Style Mustard and Mayonnaise -- on the sandwiches she makes for her family's lunches would be treating her family to sandwiches that taste like they had been made by a real New York Deli worker.

The actor playing "Mum" was dressed in the stereotypical deli worker outfit of white shirt, white apron and white wedge cap. He also had what I would call the standard characteristics of someone from Brooklyn (beefy looking). I think the New York tonal inflections could have been played up a bit more.

This "visual statement" was then contrasted to the context of "the deli guy" playing the role, speaking the dialogue and being interacted with by others as if "he" were the stereo-typical middle-class mother sending her family off with lunches.

I thought it was entertaining. I chuckled several times. It didn't seem "gay" at all.

The AFA's Action Alert claims that homosexuals kissing is "featured" in the ad.

Let me tell you, I watch a science fiction show on the "BBC America" channel which really has featured same-sex kissing. The show "Torchwood" (of which I am a big fan) has a lead character whose sexual orientation is best summed up as "very" and he is clear on the fact that he has no gender preferences or restrictions whatsoever.

The same-sex kissing shown in that show is the kind that lasts for full minutes, is open mouthed, and sometimes shows tongue; which is to say that the kissing is "featured" in the classical fashion which TV and silver screens notoriously use to show great passionate kisses.

In the Heinz ad that AFA is so alarmed about, there is a domestic Doris Day type peck on the lips that lasts less than a second as the "Dad" runs out the door to work. It is hardly gay, and it is hardly a feature.

AFA is off the mark on this one. It seems much more obvious that Heinz was just plying a tongue and cheek substitution maneuver in this advertisement for their deli-style kitchen product.

I think AFA is just seeing what they fear the most: Adam and Steve instead of McMurray and Reed.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration.



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25 June 2008

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Bill's Spirit is an Artist, Writer, Poet, Philosopher currently wordsmithing social commentary from a humble digital forge in small town Ohio.

The works of the man behind Bill's Spirit have been published in small, alternative and amateur presses since 1986. Before that, they just filled notebooks, decorated walls and gathered dust in piles and boxes.

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