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LGBT-inclusive advertising (which depicts same-sex couplehood either in images or words) among mainstream advertisers is a rare thing, indeed. This is part of my series to document companies who market a product or service meant for the general population but with an ad that targets, focuses on or includes the LGBT community.

GALLERY OF ADS IN THIS ISSUE:

So much for Change. Within the past few days – the Obama administration did nothing to stop the firing of a decorated war hero simply because he is gay.

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NZDRjEKwtQ]

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Reports On: Decorated Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach Discharged For Being Gay

This is a scan of one of the many iTunes badges that were handed out at the 2008 San Jose Pride festival.

LGBT-inclusive advertising (which depicts same-sex couplehood either in images or words) among mainstream advertisers is a rare thing, indeed. This is part of my series to document companies who market a product or service meant for the general population but with an ad that targets, focuses on or includes the LGBT community.

GALLERY OF ADS IN THIS ISSUE:

Out of the thousands and thousands of good preachers available Jan. 20, Obama picked one of the leaders of the anti-gay marriage movement. As the Boston Globe says in today’s editorial by Derrick Z. Jackson:

   To this day, in all the phobic frenzy to ban gay marriage in state after state, not a single straight person has yet to demonstrate how a gay or lesbian couple’s marriage has any impact whatsoever on a straight marriage, let alone how it might bring the institution to its knees. Gay folks are merely a scapegoat for the fact that straight couples get it right only about half the time.

…

   Obama [is] exercising terrible judgment on someone who just got done injecting anti-gay ideology into politics in the biggest state in the nation. It is nice that Warren and many evangelicals are increasingly involved in the environment and global poverty. But it seems that Obama is having a little PJSD here, as in Post Jeremiah Stress Disorder. Having nearly had his campaign destroyed by the tapes of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright blasting America as a hopelessly racist nation, Obama seems compelled to close his eyes to one of the most powerful forms of conservative-driven bigotry left in this country.

…

   Obama earned an outpouring of support from gay and lesbian voters, even though his personal stand on gay marriage was standard political fare, stopping at civil unions. Gay advocacy groups praised how he included them rhetorically in speech after speech. Now, a month before that great day that could bring all Americans together unlike any in the nation’s history, Obama has gone out of his way to pick someone for the invocation who is not even close to being a pastor for all Americans.

   When Obama saw how flammable Wright was, he took him off the stage for the announcement of his candidacy in Springfield, Ill. Warren’s calling a ban on gay marriage a “humanitarian” issue should result in the same. If Warren is allowed to give the invocation, the bright American rainbow that got Obama into office will dim in a way that spells danger for what else Obama will not stand up for.

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, my state’s constitution broke and some discrimination got in.

That’s not the way it is supposed to happen. And that is why the U.S. is founded on the principles of a democratic republic – and not as a pure democracy.

In a pure democracy the majority always rules at the cost of minorities. But, in a democratic republic, minorities are guaranteed the same rights as the majority.

In Prop 8, in its pure form democracy “won.” The majority claimed rights – but carved out one specific minority group to not share those same rights.

That is a classic example of a majority using the tools of democracy to discriminate against a minority. Normally, this is something banned in democratic republics like America.

But not on Nov. 4. The majority in four states on that Tuesday decided that gay people are less than human in that they apparently do not deserve full human rights.

Putting the basic civil rights of a minority group up to a popular vote is just plain wrong and against everything this country believes in – honoring majority rule as long as the fundamental rights of minorities are protected.

As of today, two states: Massachusetts and Connecticut recognize gay and lesbian people as full citizens with all the rights and responsibilities as every other citizen.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJt1U1HK8Uw]