Wednesday, July 13, 2005

The Gay Agenda Intimidates Another Corporation

John Cole of Balloon Juice, one of my favorite blogs of the right, points us to the outrage of the American Family Association over the fact that Johnson and Johnson will be advertising Tylenol in (gasp!) a gay magazine!
From the press release of the AFA:


Johnson & Johnson will be advertising its brand, Tylenol PM, in the July 19 issue of The Advocate, a leading gay magazine.
The ad shows two shirtless men in bed side by side. The text over one reads: "His backache is keeping him up." Over the other: "His boyfriend's backache is keeping him up."
Johnson & Johnson has been advertising in gay media since 1996. Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, said people need to take notice.
"A lot of corporate America has bought into the idea that they can secretly promote homosexuality without their consumers noticing out there," he said.
Mike Haley, director of the gender issues department at Focus on the Family, said the gay and lesbian community has a lot of expendable income, so they are targeting big corporations who are caving to their pressure.
"I think it's a critical issue," he said, "because it's one more way that the issue of homosexuality is being normalized and sent out as though it's not harmful—as though it's not against what God originally intended."


Cole says it best, I think:

"There is nothing wrong with Johnson and Johnson placing ads to sell their product. Little boys all over the country are not going to look at a Tylenol PM ad in a gay magazine, say to themselves, "all of a sudden I like penises and I deny the existence of Christ" and become card-carrying members of the homosexual agenda. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, no matter how much Focus on the Family think homosexuals are on a mission to 'gay up' the whole country. People don't just 'turn' gay.
These people really need to get a grip of themselves."

Earlier in his post, Cole points out the fact that the idea that gays have a great deal of disposable income is a myth...a positive myth for the community, but a myth nonetheless. And honestly, I could not say it any better than John Cole, when he says that

"...Focus on the Family just DOES NOT WANT THESE PEOPLE TO EXIST. This isn't an ad in Sports Illustrated for Kids, or a commercial on the Cartoon Network. It is an ad in a magazine the Advocate, a magazine for people who are homosexual (or, in the vernacualr [sic] of the folks at Focus in the Family, "people who have already become gay"). In other words, it is the same thing as (horror of horrors) Johnson & Johnson using ads with black people in them for placement in Jet or Ebony. Or MTV showing commercials with young kids in skateboard punk get-up."

God forbid that companies practice a little good old-fashioned American capitalism by targeting a specific group within a publication aimed at that group. Just how advertising in a gay magazine actually promotes 'gayness' is beyone me. I bet that the AFA went into seizures when they say the Orbitz ad promoting gay vacations. That would be a funny sight to see I think. Disturbing, but briefly funny.
(Cross-posted by Bostondreamer at FloridaBlues)
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