Boycotting Brands...Like Barilla, For Instance

[ScoopKW]

The "debate" about this issue isn't as contentious or important as our debate about slavery 160 years ago, but the two debates are similar. Eventually, the correct way of thinking (equal recourse to the law) is going to win. Delaying that will eventually be just another source of national shame -- like making people drink from different water fountains and sit at different lunch counters. Or rounding people up and placing them in camps in Arizona because of their ethnicity.

Same "debate" different players. (Well, ONE different player. The intolerant demographic has not changed one bit over the past couple centuries.)

[annabelle]

No one is being rounded up (Nazis and Communists), made to wear identifying marks (Nazis and Communists), put in camps or prisons (Communists and Nazis), killed (Muslims), or symbolically gang-raped (Muslims).

The only intolerance on display is that to traditional marriage and its adherents.

[cakewalk]

Here is a nice open letter from a mom to the CEO of Barilla about their family. I think it does a good job of explaining the feelings of that particular side of the "debate*."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casey-careybrown/an-open-letter-to-guido-barilla_b_3999666.html

* As I said before, there really need be no debate at all. Debate in this case is just a delaying tactic from the side that's going to lose.

That is an interesting letter, thanks for the link. But I disagree with her 100%. (And, just FYI, in no way do I agree with the Barilla guy, not one bit. I don't buy a particular brand of pasta, but I will make a point of not buying Barilla due to his statement, which BTW I attribute to cluelessness more than anything else, but he's still responsible for it.) But in that letter she is saying, "you have power and influence, therefore you should keep your mouth shut." Oh no. That is not reasonable, and whether someone agrees or disagrees with her cause/his cause is irrelevant. She does not get to choose at what point people can or cannot voice their opinions.

[ScoopKW]

Way to Godwin this thread.

Traditional marriage adherents have recourse to the law. Gay couples do not have the same recourse. They are going to win this battle, unless someone can successfully argue that they are less than human. You have staked out an indefensible position. This is one of those "better get used to it" social changes that seems to happen every couple generations. Lester Maddox and his followers in Georgia had to get used to it, too. (Can't believe they elected him governor. But I will grant that he did a fairly good job as governor. Funny how things work out.)

No one is being rounded up (Nazis and Communists), made to wear identifying marks (Nazis and Communists), put in camps or prisons (Communists and Nazis), killed (Muslims), or symbolically gang-raped (Muslims).

The only intolerance on display is that to traditional marriage and its adherents.

[huiray]

Regarding "...a largely Catholic country...":

France (76%), Spain (94%), Portugal (88%), Brazil (65%; and numerically the country w/ the largest number), Argentina (92%), Uruguay (77%) are all also "largely Catholic" countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_by_country

In all of these countries same-sex marriages are legal and the definition of a family therefore officially encompasses these same-sex families. ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_same-sex_marriage

Your point being?

I am merely pointing out that many of these types of news stories are spun to create greater controversy.. It is the same thing in reverse to the whole christian boycott of starbucks because the CEO is supposedly anti-traditional marriage and doesn't want their business. Very few people actually took the time to find out exactly what is said, instead they relied on the inflammatory spin to base their outrage on.

Sometimes I think without facebook and twitter no one would know what to be outraged about next. .

That you appeared to tie his voicing those sentiments to his being in a Catholic country, implying that in a Catholic country (i.e. any Catholic country) his sentiments of a family as he defined it was normal and definitive, and that same-sex married couples would not be accepted. If so, that would be incorrect.

As for what he actually said, it *has* been reported on and carefully described, word for word, in far more places than Twitter and Facebook. Including on Snopes.com. All you have to do is look around.

Your logic doesn't follow. The civil laws of italy or those other countries are a moot point. The canonical law of the roman catholic church is very clear on the articles of faith for catholicism. In a country that is ~96% catholic , hearing that an italian male from a prominent bussiness family will only use representations of the traditional family in his companies advertising is about as shocking as being told water is wet, or that rice is often eaten in asia. The information is as glaringly obvious as the sun in the sky at noon on a clear day.

You are mistaken.

There is a great deal of relevance regarding civil marriage and religious marriage in a practical sense in any modern country. That one can focus on the religious aspects of what a "traditional family" is fine, in a certain sense, and the canonical injunctions upon same-sex marriage; but when you tie that to a Catholic country you are incorrect. There is still much Sturm und Drang in the USA, for example, about same-sex marriage, but it is coming from RELIGIOUS quarters MOST of whom are NOT Catholic. There isn't something about being a "Catholic country" where Guido Barilla's comments are "to be expected". It is about being a religiously-driven/reactionary country (ISLAMIC INCLUDED) that precludes religious acceptance of same-sex marriage.

As a practical matter, one's religious marriage matters not a whit in a practical sense in most Western countries nowadays unless you are also married CIVILLY by the State. Every church wedding in the West also requires that pesky CIVIL/STATE MARRIAGE document - but perhaps you have forgotten that. When Guido Barilla says what he did he basically thumbed his nose at the fact that civil marriage, the one that counts in a practical sense even in Italy and which would be the one that gays and lesbians are striving towards, is to be disregarded by his company, the largest producer and maker of pasta and a company which he, as the head, has influence over the imagery of what constitutes a family in modern times. Yes, he is free to say what he did. I am free to react to it as I will. One is also free to consider that it was "to be expected" for him to say what he did, and I am free to disagree with that proclamation.

In any case, the church *didn't* get involved in marriages in earlier times and only got into the game much later - but that is a subject way beyond this thread.

For that matter, in France, an example I quoted in my previous post and which is overwhelmingly Catholic, it has been reported that up to two-thirds of the public (despite being Catholic) are accepting of same-sex marriage even though there was all that frenetic arm-waving from the Established Catholic Church-driven forces there. In this regard it has been pointed out that Italy is, indeed, in a different place than other countries which have accepted homosexuality and same-sex marriage in society at large, whether that society is largely Catholic or not, and *that* would have been a more pertinent aspect to wonder about, rather than saying that it was to be expected "in a Catholic country".

Edited September 29, 2013 by huiray (log)

[annabelle]

Way to Godwin this thread.

Traditional marriage adherents have recourse to the law. Gay couples do not have the same recourse. They are going to win this battle, unless someone can successfully argue that they are less than human. You have staked out an indefensible position. This is one of those "better get used to it" social changes that seems to happen every couple generations. Lester Maddox and his followers in Georgia had to get used to it, too. (Can't believe they elected him governor. But I will grant that he did a fairly good job as governor. Funny how things work out.)

No one is being rounded up (Nazis and Communists), made to wear identifying marks (Nazis and Communists), put in camps or prisons (Communists and Nazis), killed (Muslims), or symbolically gang-raped (Muslims).

The only intolerance on display is that to traditional marriage and its adherents.

____________________________________________________________

Hardly. I let you wave your strawmen around and didn't call you on it.

I'm not going to talk about this on this thread. Talk to me in a PM since this will all get deleted soon enough.

*I don't know what happened to the quote boxes.

Edited September 29, 2013 by annabelle (log)

[cakewalk]

The only intolerance on display is that to traditional marriage and its adherents.

I really don't know what you're referring to here. I don't remember ever reading or hearing about a heterosexual couple being refused a marriage license (or an apartment, or a job, or health coverage) because of their heterosexuality.

[annabelle]

See above, cakewalk. PM.

[ScoopKW]

Good point.

Just like England beat the United States to the conclusion that "they buying and selling of people is morally reprehensible" by more than 30 years, France has beaten Italy to the idea that everyone has recourse to the law.

For that matter, in France, an example I quoted in my previous post and which is overwhelmingly Catholic, it has been reported that up to two-thirds of the public (despite being Catholic) are accepting of same-sex marriage even though there was all that frenetic arm-waving from the Established Catholic Church-driven forces there. In this regard it has been pointed out that Italy is, indeed, in a different place than other countries which have accepted homosexuality and same-sex marriage in society at large, whether that society is largely Catholic or not, and *that* would have been a more pertinent aspect to wonder about, rather than saying that it was to be expected "in a Catholic country".

[Chris Hennes]

As this discussion has evolved into one that is off-topic for the eG Forums, we are closing it.