NEW YORK CITY: General Mills & Walmart Advertise In 2015 Pride Guide

NYC Pride released this year's magazine yesterday and among the advertisers are General Mills' Cheerios brand and Walmart, the latter of whom was integral to slapping down the license to discriminate bill in Arkansas. Walmart has been trying to years to open a New York City store, but has met stiff opposition from activists and elected officials. See the magazine.

General Mills Puts Freedom To Marry Head Evan Wolfson On The Wheaties Box

Freedom To Marry: "Wheaties is 'the breakfast of champions' and General Mills, its parent company, is a supporter of the freedom to marry. So, it's pretty cool that they created a commemorative box featuring Freedom to Marry's President Evan Wolfson." Uh oh, time for double boycott!

New Cheerios Ad Stars Gay Family

In another pro-gay move by General Mills, a Cheerios campaign that stars a gay family will launch this week in Canada. Via Marketing Mag:

“The Cheerios Effect,” is the colloquial name some have given to a phenomenon that anyone who’s eaten a bowl of the cereal knows: when two Cheerios float in milk, they tend to attract one another thanks to surface tension. Cossette is using this as a jumping-off point to address the broader issue of social isolation and loneliness. Even though the phrase “Cheerios effect” first popped up on Wikipedia in 2007, surprisingly, this marks the first time that the brand has ever used the phenomenon in a marketing effort. “We were in meeting with agency talking about issue of disconnection in society, this epidemic of loneliness,” says Jason Doolan, director of marketing for cereal at General Mills Canada. “We talked about the history of Cheerios and the role it could play in bringing people together. Somebody stood up and said, ‘You know, when you put two Cheerios in a bowl, they float together.’ It didn’t take more than 30 seconds on Google for someone to say, ‘It’s a real thing.’ We think it’s a perfect metaphor for human beings’ desire to connect.”

In addition to the gay family below, the Cheerios Effect campaign will tell the stories of young people connecting via sign language. A social media-driven site for customers to tell their own connection stories has been launched to support the ads. Get ready for NOM to boycott General Mills even harder!

NOM's Boycott Of Target Is Flopping Even Worse Than All Their Other Boycotts

A laughably measly 2583 people have signed NOM's boycott petition for Target since the retail giant submitted pro-gay marriage briefs last week in the states of Wisconsin and Indiana. NOM's 30-month-old boycott petition for Starbucks has yielded 68,745 names - a number that has scarcely budged in the last two years. Their 25-month-old boycott petition for General Mills petered out in the fall of 2012 and the current total of 27,612 names is only a couple of hundred more than a year ago. And of course, the more recent boycott petition for trillion-dollar international banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase remains stalled with barely more than 7000 names. Are you seeing the trend here?

Lucky Charms Celebrates Pride Month

General Mills is celebrating LGBT Pride Month with a Lucky Charms campaign which invites you to post photos with the #LuckyToBe hashtag. I can think of somebody who won't find this magically delicious! Thank you, General Mills!

Reince Preibus: Despite Apology, MSNBC Remains On Probation With The GOP

Via Mediaite:

On Thursday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus demanded that GOP politicians and committee staffers boycott MSNBC after the network sent out a tweet accusing the “rightwing” of being offended by a commercial featuring a biracial family. On Thursday night, Priebus joined Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity where he lauded MSNBC President Phil Griffin for quickly responding to the controversy. He warned, however, that the network was “on probation.” “In their professed world of tolerance, they’re sure hitting on all eight cylinders of intolerance,” Priebus said of MSNBC. He reveled that he called Griffin personally and left a message asking for an apology and asking for a corrective action.

The SPLC notes that for all his "raaaacist" screams, Preibus had no problem a few weeks ago when he appeared on the radio show of the KKK-affiliated Tony Perkins, who also once spoke before Louisiana's White Citizens Council, which opposes "race mixing" and calls black people "a retrograde species of humanity."

GOP Calls For Boycott Of MSNBC, Bans All RNC Staffers From Working With NetworkUPDATE: MSNBC Fires Twitter Staffer, Apologizes For Third Time

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has issued a call for a boycott of MSNBC over yesterday's tweet which suggested that "right wingers" would hate the biracial family featured in a new Cheerios commercial. The tweet was deleted almost immediately and was followed by two tweeted apologies. Via Breitbart:

"Until you personally and publicly apologize for this behavior, I have banned all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC. I have asked Republican surrogates and officials to follow our lead," Priebus told MSNBC President Phil Griffin in a letter sent today. Priebus also sent a memo to Republican officials and surrogates urging them not to appear on the network until Griffin apologizes. "This is more than just a tweet or an offhand comment. This is part of a pattern of behavior that has gotten markedly worse, and until Phil Griffin personally apologizes and takes corrective action, we cannot be part of this network's toxic programming," Priebus said. "MSNBC hosts---including Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashir, Melissa Harris-Perry, Alex Wagner, and Ronan Farrow just to name a few---have had a troubling streak in the last several weeks of making comments that belittle and demean Americans without furthering any thoughtful dialogue. Perhaps it's time for the executives at MSNBC to consider whether their network is upholding a meaningful journalistic mission," the Wisconsin Republican added.

As I noted in my post about this nonsense earlier today, neither Breitbart nor Preibus seem to remember that General Mills had to block commenting on the last Cheerios commercial because of the thousands of racist comments being made by God's Gentle People. Many of those comments mocked President Obama for being biracial himself.

UPDATE: MSNBC has issued another apology and fired their Twitter person.  From MSNBC president Phil Griffin, here is the apology that was read on the air this afternoon.

“The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable. We immediately acknowledged it was offensive and wrong, apologized and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet. I personally apologize to Mr. Priebus and to everyone offended. At MSNBC, we believe in passionate, strong debate about the issues, and we invite voices from all sides to participate. That will never change. Signed, Phil Griffin.”

MSNBC Tweet Draws Fire From The Right

Yesterday MSNBC posted the above tweet, immediately drawing scorn from Twitter's wingnuts, who then issued the usual "race baiting" nonsense. I guess they forgot the deluge of racism that followed Cheerios' last commercial, which forced General Mills to suspend YouTube commenting on the clip.  MSNBC has deleted the tweet and issued an apology.

Betty Crocker Celebrates ALL Families

The reaction from you-know-who will be as delicious as a Betty Crocker cake. Thanks, Betty!

Facebook Graphic Of The Day

Source.

Tony Perkins: Boycott Betty Crocker

During his daily show on Christian radio, today hate group leader Tony Perkins asked his listeners to join NOM's hilariously failed boycott of General Mills.  Because Betty Crocker is a homo-loving purveyor of anti-Christian cake mix.

At Betty Crocker, the only thing they're mixing up is their priorities. Hi, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. If you ask conservatives, Betty Crocker's latest promotion is a recipe for disaster. This summer, the famous dessert line decided to jump on the same-sex "marriage" bandwagon-and bring cakes to celebrate. In Minnesota, where parent company General Mills is headquartered, Betty Crocker decided to donate wedding cakes to the first homosexual couples who exchanged vows on the first day that counterfeit marriage was legal. "Betty celebrates all families," said manager Laura Forero. "We don't want to be old fashioned," the company explained. Unfortunately for General Mills, the majority of Americans think natural marriage is anything but old fashioned. And they've made it tough on companies like Target, Starbucks, and JC Penney who disagree. Know where your money is going. When you're at the store, think outside the Betty Crocker box! For a full list of products that are undermining marriage, check out DumpGeneralMills.com.

REMINDER: When anti-gay Christianist hate groups call for nationwide boycotts of LGBT-friendly companies, that is a righteous use of the free market in order to preserve morality, marriage, family, and The American Way. But when GAY groups use or threaten the use of a boycott, THAT is homofascist intimidation, intolerance, bullying, and a "mafia-style" attempt to deny the freedom of speech. (Hello, Oregon!) Just so we're clear.

Magically Gaylicious Flap Continues

"Your children’s breakfast cereal is now gay. Just so you know. Your children’s breakfast cereal is now gay. I don’t think that’s a sentence anybody not a comedy writer ever imagined penning. What’s next? Snap, Crackle, and Poppers?" - Conservative pundit Rod Dreher.  Gotta admit, I totally LOL'd.

From The Manhattan Declaration

They're Magically Gaylicious

I missed this during last week's hoopla.

General Mills has come out in support of the gay community for Pride, and what better way to show their love than with the Lucky Charms marshmallow rainbow? The "magically delicious" cereal is serving as the face of the new #LuckyToBe campaign which encourages people with Pride to tweet and post online their reasons for why they're prideful using the hashtag #LuckyToBe. "We're celebrating Pride month with whimsical delight, magical charms, and two new rainbow marshmallows... If you're lucky enough to be different, we're celebrating you," the #LuckyToBe campaign stated in a press release sent to GLAAD.