Slashdot Mirror
Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks
ifchairscouldtalk writes "Pasta maker Barilla is in hot water over its chairman's anti-gay comments. Guido Barilla said his brand would 'never feature gays in ads' because Barilla does not agree with them. He added, '[if gay people] like our pasta and our advertising, they'll eat our pasta, if they don't like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand.' Vehement protest worldwide calling for a boycott of Barilla products via Twitter and Facebook forced the chairman to apologize with a video on Facebook."
Stay away!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Pasta-maker CEO in hot water? Is his name Al Dente?
The guy is entitled to his opinion and to run the company as he wishes. If you don't like it don't buy it. Enough with the stupid fucking boycotts that are nothing but attempts at silencing free speech.
And wtf does a pasta makers stance on gays have to do with slashdot anyway? Can we stop pushing an agenda yet?
What a shortsighted and stupid move from a CEO of such a large multinational... If I were Buitoni, I would quickly release a few commercials featuring happy gay couples living on the Italian countryside...
...to find a way to boycott the boycotters. "Fine, it's your right to boycott Barilla (or Florida or whatever the cause du jour is) but fuck you, we're all going to boycott YOUR business because of it. That's MY right."
There's a difference (but obscuring that difference makes people even more hostile, and that's the goal, right?)
I sent off my little missive to Barilla corporate yesterday.
Sometimes apologies don't mean shit. It's far more important to know what people really believe. And to remember it.
While I realize that not every homophobic / racist / anti-"you are not my religion" person is not old, they seem to disproportionately skew that way. Seems a good company/government policy would be that old people not be allowed to speak publicly as representatives of the company/government, no matter how high their rank, without first vetting their proposed comments through some younger folks.
Disclaimer: I am approaching old people status (probably already there by a lot of younger folks estimation).
business that shows families having dinner in its advertisements says it doesn't want to depict gay families, even though gay families probably make up a tiny percentage of their market: ERMAGERD BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT
own government attacks state that poses no threat leading to the death of a million people, engages in torture, extrajudicial execution, mass spying on its own citizens a.la. KGB/STASI, is the worlds biggest arms dealer, supports dozens of brutal dictators in the Middle East and other places, provides crucial diplomatic and financial aid to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine: ERMAGERD MILEY IS TWERKING!!
Hell, I don't even like pasta but at least the CEO is normal. Why is it the deviants get to call anyone who doesn't indulge in their deviancy phobic?
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
would make his own pasta from scratch, with organic flour and free range eggs, and not buy it in a box.
...and that the Internet exists, and that gay people are not the pariahs they once were, and that I'm not quite rich enough to buy you all off. I will work harder in the future to address these faults. A boycott can only delay the day when I will succeed in doing so. Thank you for paying attention, but please stop.
Waste of bandwidth.
...for a high-end premium pasta maker to make a targeted marketing push and buy some space in Gay publications and websites.
Now where's my cushy CEO/marketing job?
I don't care about what this guy had to say the first time around. I don't care that he apologized. I don't care about his Pasta, his company, his facebook page or his dog. I don't care.
As predicted in Slate, Guido Barilla (yes, that's his name) issues meaningless apology. For those counting at home, this is actually the forth one. Now what?
Who knew the CEO of a pasta company's thoughts were so important? I would like to see a follow up story on his thoughts on the NSA and encryption, the Syria crisis, and perhaps global warming. Maybe Slashdot could solicit questions from the readers and have him respond in follow up post.
... you all are...
"homophobic" blah blah blah.
Homosexuality is a mental illness. Homosexuals are many times more likely to be paedophiles than heterosexuals:
Around 30% of the victims of paedophiles are boys
Only ONE PERCENT of men are homosexuals.
Do the maths.
Notice how the 'pro gays' never talk about what gays actually DO to each other.
Did the penis evolve to fit the vagina, and did the vagina evolve to fit the penis?
Did the penis evolve to fit the anus? No.
Did the anus evolve to accommodate a penis? No.
Did the anus evolve as a sexual organ. No.
Do gays rub their penises together? Of course not, because homosexuality is unnatural. Instead they try to mimic heterosexual intercourse (i.e. NORMAL intercourse, as their bodies were designed for) by using each others' anuses instead of vaginas. How disgusting.
If you don't like this company for daring to not go along with the sick JEW world order, then don't buy their products. You WILL lose eventually, because MOST people can't stand homosexuals, especially the ones who ruin other people's lives because we dare to tell you THAT WE DON'T LIKE YOU:
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/bed-and-breakfast-owners-forced-to-sell-hotel-after-harassment-by-gay-activists/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424983/Christian-B-B-owners-refused-gay-couple-close-business.html
Yep, you gays sure are completely normal and loved by all of society...
Especially when you get people sacked from their jobs for daring to say that they don't think you're normal. What lovely, sane people you must be.
Soon the Jews' tyranny will be over and we will finally get our countries back, only this time there won't be ANY white countries attacking each other 'because the Jew told us to', and every last one of you parasites is going to be exiled to Israel, all 'foreign aid' will be removed, and we'll let the muslims sort you out...
And if you think MOST people think homosexuals are just wonderful, please explain why you NEVER see a pop video for a love song featuring two flaming faggots, and you NEVER see two flaming faggots on Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice, etc.etc.
Because MOST people find it vile, that's why. If MOST people thought you were normal, you wouldn't have had to FORCE your 'special rights' onto us, would you.
not accepted. You've told us who you really are and how you really feel, Mr. Bigot, uh ... Barilla.
"Aplology"?! *facepalm* Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I think I need more coffee...
... of attempting to use reason to engage the irrational mob.
On a lighter note with chick-fil-a profits at an all time high what does this chairman have to fear but fear itself?
Seriously there does seem to be a general lack of respect and tolerance for the opinions of others in the faceb00c twitterverseternet. So someone thinks your god is a loser or orange people are inferior to purple people or those who eat rice with their bare hands are cave dwelling vampires. If someone says or does something you personally don't agree with or you don't like is it really always necessary to turn the megaphone up to 11 and tell the world how wrong and out of touch the other guy is? Respect is a bidirectional affair.
In my view intolerance and lack of respect for the views of others is no different than intolerance of race/religion/sex*/..etc. Intolerance is intolerance.
I want to support someone normal.
As well as sanctimonius rightousness, Mr. Barilla was also introduced to the shrill voice of America's ignorance.
I see San Remo have come forth with their response. ^_^
Yes, this is all business. Just because it's business doesn't mean it's somehow isolated from the real world, and the need to behave in a respectful manner.
Some Guido doesn't like gays. I bet he likes fake tits and spray tans, though.
Am I the only one cynical enough to see this as a publicity stunt to get his product's name some free press?
Step 1: make an inane statement that deeply offends some group, guaranteeing press coverage.
Step 2: make a "heartfelt" apology for those that were offended by his words.
Step 3: draw it out for a few more weeks by meeting representatives of the groups he offended, and probably make some large corporate donations to said groups.
Step 4: profit (?)
Barilla was wrong to back down. Slashdot was wrong to post this gay garbage here on a tech site.
I looked at his original comments - to me they appear perhaps even more offensive to women than to gay. He's clearly a "woman's place is in the kitchen" proponent.
and also not in favour of deliberately sticking gay people in the media to show them off, I still find his remarks very problematic.
Choosing to not give the role of media spokesperson to someone who is gay and a public figure in "gay rights movements" is one thing. But ruling out that an advertisement can ever contain a gay family is going too far.
In that case you are not disliking merely "the way in which they are gay", i.e. they are gay and they take specific actions and you dislike those particular actions, but you blanket exclude them regardless of what they do from the fact that they are gay alone.
And advertisements vary hugely and can normally contain a wide range of things. Not even in an advertisement featuring a thousand families eating spaghetti would he include a single gay family. That is extreme.
'Where a woman has a traditional role!'
We can totally have him put up an ad with lesbians then, one totally masculine and the other totally feminine, and then just to fuck people up, have the gay male couple from next store come over to share dinner with them!
Problem solved :)
Firstly, why are Barilla's remarks considered anti-gay? I don't feel they are. His position is that if you like his pasta, gay or not, you are free to buy it.
Secondly, there is no universal "book of law" that states Barilla's beliefs & values must reflect anybody or everybody else's. Hypocrisy abounds. The fervor of gay community elements have reached shrieking "reverse discrimination" pitches.
Thirdly, Barilla owes nothing to the gay community. He makes pasta. I think if he doesn't want to feature homosexuality as a cornerstone to a freaking pasta advertisement, that should be his choice. Why should he be forced politicize pasta?
Females are able to discern who to mate with based on smell, which matches them to a different immune system and so passes on the benefits of two immune systems to their progeny. This keeps our species ahead of the pathogens trying to evade our immune system. Oral contraceptives change the female reaction to smell, causing a preference to mate with a similar immune system. Matings which result from this produce progeny with only a single source of immune system, which, if this behavior is passed on to the majority, will cause our species to be wiped out by the pathogens. To prevent this, nature makes a small percentage of the progeny of such matings effectively sterile, e.g. homosexual. Pharmaceutical companies are big supporters of gay organizations, so no boycott there.
Why is this on Slashdot?
You faggots need to shut the fuck up! You whine about being discriminated against... Well, in light of this episode, I am all in favor of discriminating against homos.
SUCK IT, FAGGOTS!
I'd love to see more CEOs like Dan Cathy with the balls to not fear writing off the small homo market segment.
Did anyone read his actual comments? OK, his point of view supports traditional family structure, but certainly did not seem actively hostile to homosexuals. He seemed to be quite "tolerant". But tolerance isn't good enough anymore is it? You must actively embrace the homosexual way or you are a homophobe?
Give me a break, and show some tolerance yourself.
The fudge packing union needs to make some pro-gay advertisements. Or is that just another name for the modern Democratic Party?
This is a disgrace. There is no way that I am going to remain a Berilla customer after this debacle.
From now on, I will be buying my Fagottini pasta somewhere else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagottini
Snopes actually has a pretty good summary of the situation. The guy supports gay rights and gay marriage. He is, however, against adoption by gay parents (because it involves a person who has no choice in the matter). He wants advertisements for his pasta to focus on families, and since his beliefs (and biology) prohibit gay parents from having kids, they cannot appear in his ads.
Good thing the majority of America isn't ok with homosexuality just like they aren't ok with pedophilia or beastiality. I will continue supporting Barilla and Chick Fil A and whatever company that supports some sort of morality as oppossed to those who cave in out of fear of a vocal minority.
I've tripled my purchases of that for-straights-only pasta product.
I am sure I consume goods produced by both homosexual and heterosexual owned businesses. Whether I support one or the other, or how they live their private lives is irrelevant.
If we want to talk real evil, let's talk Monsanto.
Not because of the comments... ... wrong or not they are his and all the whiners should STFU.
But because he backed down from his beliefs
Long story short: People react very strongly to things being unfamiliar or strange. Things you see at least occasionally are much less threatening. If occasional ads include gay couples, then people are a lot more likely to be tolerant of gays and inclined to think gays should get the same basic legal protections other people do. If there are no gay couples on TV, then people are a lot less likely to be tolerant of gays. This is just very basic low-level wiring in the brain; we distrust unfamiliar things, the same way just about all other animals do. And that means that there is significant social impact from having advertisements include, or not-include, particular recognizable classes of people.
Of course, the advertising thing might not have sunk him; it was the adoption thing that sealed the deal.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
PC has nothing to do with this, it is all about the potential loss of profit. Barilla could really care less if people are offended, unless they stop spending then it becomes an issue...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
And, naturally, no cocksucker steps forward to apologize for there being no "S" in "LGBT".
The pasta company said it happily serves gays, sells to gays, etc (no anti-gay anything) but that the corporate image is of a traditional family sitting down to a home-cooked (cooked by a mom, no less) meal... and that gays in the ads would be inconsistent with that corporate image (which it would). Corporate images are very important parts of marketing plans (think KFC and "the Colonel") the image does not have to be logical, rational, etc (Budweiser frogs?) but it is important for branding that it be consistent.
Ahh, but OH NO! the uber-tolerant left finds this completely INTOLERABLE!!!!
Under the rules of "tolerance" we may all think what we think and believe what we believe and live as we wish to live... unless we disagree with them and their ever-mutating, evolving standards. The moment somebody says something that can be in some way twisted into so-called "hate speech", these paragons of peace, love and tolerance HATE him. Off with his head! Destroy his business! His right to freedom ends anywhere their rhetorical fists choose to fly. They refuse to acknowledge his right to market to average families with the images of average families. By this standard, gays should be banned from using gay imagery to market products to gays (by not using straights, they are being HATERS!)
The extreme dishonesty and duplicity of the left on cultural issues is tiresome and juvenile... it's where you end up when the focus of your life is on what's between your legs (see: gay pride parade)
It's occasionally funny when the two mix. Like when liberals defend neo nazis.
The population leans younger and some of them have just discovered that people have interesting things between their legs. Some of these young people suffer from confusion and/or body dysmorphic disorders and there are others here who are much older but never grew beyond the initial fascination with their own private parts and the private parts of others. These people latch-onto anything related to "personal plumbing" and try to relate everything to their private bits.
It's like a kid with a hammer - everything is a nail.
Some geek with abnormal sexual tendencies sees something related to his personal issues that angers him and he HAS TO post it everywhere including on a non-sexual site - because his sexual proclivities are the most important thing in his life (whereas most of us keep our private lives to ourselves). Most people would rather not know the odd preferences/hangups of the people around them, but gays DEMAND we all know theirs and that we recite after them: "it's normal, it's normal". It's on Slashdot because somebody with a disorder decided we all had to have it jammed into our faces; it's not enough that he live his sad little life in his little corner of the universe, everybody must acknowledge him and accept him and embrace every aspect of his life (even if we never do that even for "straights"/"breeders") We are all required to join him in his OUTRAGE that somebody SOMEWHERE on Earth disagrees with him (Oh, the HUMANITY!)
We all have the right to know which companies are "gay friendly" and to not buy from them
This political boycott stuff runs both ways - and it's dangerous; We should all just buy based on price, features, performance, etc. and let each individual believe what he wants to believe and live as he wants to live.
Perhaps there should be web sites that keep track of which businesses hire gays, and straight people could use this info to inform them on where to shop and what to buy... I'd bet this would immediately be denounced as "hateful" and gays would immediately DEMAND laws against it (they've actually demanded and been rewarded with a law in California that requires schools to teach positive things about gays and forbids teachers from mentioning anything negative). For the activists, this has never been about "free speech", or "tolerance"; it's always been about demanding that society embrace their standards and punish anybody who disagrees.
Now they're all eating Big Gay Al's Big Gay Spaghetti! You know that scene in Lady and the Tramp with the spaghetti? The photo on the box of Big Gay Al's Big Gay Spaghetti is two dudes french kissing over a plate of spaghetti.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Not buying it is boycotting it son. Maybe you should have thought that out a little bit more before you ranted.
rationally debate with a homophobe (or any bigot for that matter). their fear gets in the way of any rational thoughts.
into the world trade center. That is why you don't wast time listening to nut jobs.
But, as we all know, homophobia, like other forms of bigotry, is not an intellectual position.
Homosexuals are irrational and hate filled and some of them even rape women because they cannot get an erection from consensual sex with women and blame the women for their inability to perform.
PS. Some of the inner circle of the NAZI party in Germany were gay.
I cannot understand this bullshit. Nobody has to support gay rights or promotoe gayness in their ads or have gay people in their ads. Barilla is a company founded in 1877 and a fourth generation family company. I would rather have this company promote traditional family values than promoting modern/post-modern ones. Gays are invading every aspect of our lives. I think we should be tolerant of gays, because it's two consenting adults. But homosexuality should never be perceived as "normal", or the new normal. I'm sick of hearing that everybody's born bisexual or historically there was always homosexuality etc,... There was also bestiality (zoophilia) throughout history, thus Wales must allow man-animal marriage!
To sum up, dear gays and "pro-gay non-gays", stop bullying people into doing what you want. It's JUST bullying! It is not freedom activism or any shit like that. In fact it's anti-democratic.
I shall buy more Barilla pasta, because this CEO got discriminated by the LGBT lobby.
I'm getting sick of those groups who intend to restricy freedom of speech and to think.
I'm free to burn any given book which I do not like, as Woody Allen is free to scrap all the Wagner records he can buy.
So am I free to support any pasta maker.
Maybe he just shot off his mouth without thinking or maybe he doesn't realize that a lot of people would react badly to his comments.
Maybe he thought those who are somewhat homophobic would appreciate his "family values".
But instead he pissed off gay people and people who support gay rights (despite his stance on gay marriage) and then he turned around and apologized for it which has pissed off some people who don't support gay rights.
I never pay attention to what brand of pasta I buy anyway. I did check my pantry out of curiosity though. I have 3 different brands of pasta in there and one of them was his.
All it did was remind me I need to cook more pasta.
So .... the chairman is a coward? Check.
Were teh gays pressuring Al Dente to have gay scenarios in his commercials? I think not and he should have kept his mouth shut except for when he is inserting noodles into said orifice.
There is no such thing as homophobia. It is a political construct invented by sissies and paid attention to by idiots!
It's all about abridging the freedom of speech...
I read "barilla chairman" as "gorilla chairman" and immediately thought of Ballmer...
The link to "news for nerds' is pretty tenuous in this case. Something is big in FB and Twitterspace, so that makes it news for nerds? I thought nerds were the people that most shunned semi-useless crap like FB and Twitter.