Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday September 28, 2013 @02:43AM from the don't-poke-the-internet-with-a-stick dept.

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."

28 of 456 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

It figures! by jaycvollmer · 2013-09-28 02:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Pasta-maker CEO in hot water? Is his name Al Dente?
FFS by geek · 2013-09-28 02:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?
1. Re:FFS by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 02:53 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Choosing where I spend my money is violating someone else's free speech? What the fuck, dude?!?
2. Re: FFS by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 02:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If he is allowed to run he company as he wishes, he should be prepared to deal with the backlash when spouting out such homophobic responses. If you are the chairman of a company you must keep in mind your public image because you are not just representing yourself when you speak out like this. Especially, if you are talking about your companies products.
3. Re:FFS by gl4ss · 2013-09-28 02:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  so you agree with if you don't like it don't buy it but disagree with boycotts? what the fuck?
  though I'm more worried why the fuck someone is even listening what the fuck some pasta maker guy says. all their adverts are basically the same anyways, some family making food or just macro shots of spaghetti. if they changed to a gay couple fencing with spaghettis.. it might be brilliant marketing.
  but also why the fuck is this on slashdot...
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
4. Re:FFS by Mr.+Slippery · 2013-09-28 03:01 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  You're not making any sense. A boycott is nothing but a large group of people saying "we don't like it, so we're not buying it." Boycotts (and buycotts) are an exercise in free speech and free markets. It is antiboycott laws (such as the blatantly unconstitutional one the U.S. has to squash criticism of Israel) that are attempts at silencing free speech.
  
  --
  Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
  You cannot wash away blood with blood
5. Re:FFS by sandytaru · 2013-09-28 03:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  He's entitled to his personal opinion. But a CEO is a very public position, and they're being paid to represent not just themselves, but also their company. For as much money as those guys make, you'd think they'd learn to separate their private opinions from their public company representation. The correct way to position this would have been: "I don't like gay people. Marketing hasn't come up with a good commercial to feature gay people, and maybe they never will. But they can still eat our pasta if they want."
  
  Shucks, if someone wanted to pay me five million dollars a year, I'd learn to keep my mouth shut.
  
  --
  Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
6. Re:FFS by bmo · 2013-09-28 03:07 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The guy is entitled to his opinion and to run the company as he wishes
  The instant you decide one person's money is less than another's, you've become bad at business.
  The converse of this is when you decide to give away too many freebies to your "friends" which is also bad business.
  I've personally seen businesses go under because of shit like this.
  He deserves this and your defense of this is idiotic.
  --
  BMO
7. Re:FFS by bmo · 2013-09-28 03:11 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Enough with the stupid fucking boycotts that are nothing but attempts at silencing free speech.
  Furthermore, free speech does not mean to be free from criticism.
  You are entirely free to say dumb things. Other people are free to say those things are dumb.
  --
  BMO
8. Re: FFS by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 03:19 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  How is disagreeing with someone a sign of fear (phobia)?
9. Re:FFS by Tom · 2013-09-28 03:31 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  but also why the fuck is this on slashdot...
  Because it's on these new cool social networks that only geeks know about and ... uh, what? It's not 2005 anymore? Really?
  Ok, I have no idea. Slow news day? Some editor found it funny? Misclick? Cat video scared the editors in hitting "accept" on three random submissions? Wrong moon phase?
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
10. Re:FFS by Arancaytar · 2013-09-28 03:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Enough with the stupid fucking boycotts that are nothing but attempts at silencing free speech.
  Boycotts are free speech, genius.
11. Re:FFS by wjcofkc · 2013-09-28 03:53 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  but also why the fuck is this on slashdot...
  
  Because an equal amount of the nerd community relative to the rest of society is gay. That makes this news that matters to many nerds. But truly that is not quite enough to justify this being on slashdot. This is also an example of technology pushing social change further than it has ever been able to go by itself. So we have: 1. nerds 2. news that matters very much to many nerds 3. a news story that matters to a lot of nerds that is firmly based in technology as an example of how it is rapidly reshaping society.
  
  That's why it's on slashdot, it fits the bill.
  
  --
  Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
12. Re:FFS by phantomfive · 2013-09-28 04:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is also an example of technology pushing social change further than it has ever been able to go by itself.
  Ineffective boycotts are farther than technology has ever gone? No, we've had ineffective boycotts long before then. Remember when Chic-fil-a closed because of the boycott? Neither do I.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
13. Re:FFS by Zero__Kelvin · 2013-09-28 04:53 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I know I'm not considering purchasing Italy any more, that's for sure!
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
14. Re: FFS by Samantha+Wright · 2013-09-28 05:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The -phobia suffix has been used to demarcate prejudices since long, long before the DSM was even conceived of. "Gallophobia" (fear/hate of the Gallic people, i.e. the French) dates back to 1840 at the latest. You are mistaken to presume it necessarily implies a disorder, or any sort of academic authority.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
15. Re:FFS by artor3 · 2013-09-28 06:19 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What constructive dialog are you talking about?
  Some liberals were pissed that the owner was a homophobe. Some conservatives rallied to support the homophobe just to spite the liberals. Some asshole mayor tried to ban Chik-fil-a from his town. And then nothing happened.
  The only thing to come out of it was that Americans were left hating their neighbors slightly more than they did before.
16. Re:FFS by AlphaWolf_HK · 2013-09-28 07:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The thing with this is there's a difference between a boycott, and then threatening them, their customers, sponsors, partners, etc with physical violence. All too often the later is what ends up happening. That cupcake business for example didn't stop because they had no customers, they had to stop because they were in fear for their lives. That is where the freedom of speech comes in.
  Somebody cracking a gay joke or not wanting to put a gay themed ad out doesn't deserve that kind of thing. Even if you don't agree, the first amendment does.
  
  --
  Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
17. Re: FFS by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 07:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Technically, he didn't spout a homophobic response. His original response was to the question of whether or not they would target gays in commercials by showing gay couples to which he responded no. He further responded if gays liked his pasta they would buy it, if not they would buy somebody elses. He didn't see the need to treat gays as a separate demographic when dealing with pasta (do gays really have different pasta needs then non-gays?) It is the media that has turned this around into an anti-gay thing.
18. Re:FFS by Zirbert · 2013-09-28 07:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If you are a photographer, you cannot be forced or coerced to take photographs of somebody's wedding. That is your choice (the same would not be true, if you were a doctor, though). Purchasing health insurance is also a personal decision and who you decide to purchase it from does not violate anybody else's rights.
  OTOH, if you are a photographer, and other people disagree with your decision on which weddings you chose to photograph or not, they are free to choose other photographers and there isn't anything you can do about that, either, as it is their right to do so.
  Ahh, if only that were true:
  http://www.businessinsider.com/new-mexico-court-ruling-on-gay-weddings-2013-8
  SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A commercial photography business owned by opponents of same-sex marriage violated New Mexico's anti-discrimination law by refusing to take pictures of a gay couple's commitment ceremony, the state's highest court ruled Thursday....Justice Richard Bosson wrote that the business owners "have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different."
19. Re: FFS by Sardaukar86 · 2013-09-28 09:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Homosexuals reject procreation. That's not an intellectual position to take. People have both a civic and moral duty to procreate.
  If that is your genuine feeling then please allow me to offer a hearty "fuck you". Who the fucking hell are you to tell me I have a moral and civic duty to procreate?
  Given the shithole we're busily making out of our little planet Earth, I see it as my moral and civic duty to NOT procreate.
  
  --
  ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
20. Re: FFS by Yosho · 2013-09-28 10:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Homosexuals reject procreation. That's not an intellectual position to take. People have both a civic and moral duty to procreate. A culture based around sustaining enough population to maintain itself through immigration is a) parasitic, b) evil and c) fundamentally self destructive.
  The social contract where you get to relax and let the young people take care of things when you're old and tired relies on everyone paying into the system. Not with money. With babies. Nothing else will do, there's nothing else you can create that will fill the gap left behind if you don't make those babies.
  Hahahah. Wow. Seriously, this is hilarious. I would think you're a troll, but you seem so level-headed about it, and you sound a lot like some Objectivists I've talked to.
  Homosexuals don't "reject procreation" at all. They are attracted to members of the same sex. That's it. They don't "reject procreation" any more than heterosexual couples that use birth control. Gay men and lesbian women are still perfectly fertile and capable of having children -- and sometimes they do! Sometimes they also like to adopt and care for orphaned children. I don't know if you've looked at an orphanage or adoption agency recently, but there is no shortage of children whose parents either could not or would not take care of them. Do you feel the same way about heterosexual couples who don't have more than two children? They're not doing their job to overpopulate the world!
  It seems like you think being homosexual is some kind of choice. There's no such thing as "promoting" it. People don't suddenly decide that being gay is cool and switch who they're attracted to. The only thing that not being prejudiced against gay people will do is make people who are already gay happier. The only consequence of people "embracing" their homosexuality is that they won't hate themselves because of people telling them they're evil.
  
  --
  Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Re:Facebook? by game+kid · 2013-09-28 03:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

Seriously, Slashdot should continue adding "(PDF warning)" to PDF links, and add "(Facebook warning)" in the same fashion to fb links.

--
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Re:Old people by Nightlight3 · 2013-09-28 03:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

Each generation is brainwashed into a different Matrix. 'Founding Fathers' and other great men until 1960s would by today's brainwashing be denounced as racist, sexist homophobes. Kids of tomorrow may denounce you as a hateful old polygamophobe, pedophilophobe, zoophilophobe, necrophilophobe, fetishphobe, toesuckingphobe, kleptophobe.... And then you too will wonder, what the heck is wrong with these kids, while they will insist that you vet your public speaking with younger, more enlightened folks before making a fool out of yourself. Having lived in a communist country as it flipped into its exact opposite, then not long after that it flipped back, you wouldn't believe how quickly and how thoroughly the tune in schools and media changes the dominant mythology to its complete opposite. Once you experience it, you can't take any of them very seriously.
Of course, not all Matrices are created equal. Since each Matrix is a computational process, working out yet another provisional solution to the social harmonization puzzle, you can't know which is a good and which a poor solution until some time time has passed and the latest experimental solution had a chance to get tested under variety of conditions. As the old book taught, you will know them by their fruits.
Re:Facebook? by mcgrew · 2013-09-28 04:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

Seriously, Slashdot should... add "(Facebook warning)" in the same fashion to fb links.
Your browser doesn't show the URL of a link you hover over?

--
Free Martian Whores!
Re:Facebook? by metlin · 2013-09-28 04:46 · Score: 4, Informative

Not on mobile devices.
Gay community takes themselves down a notch? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 05:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

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?
Mountain out of a molehill by Solandri · 2013-09-28 07:25 · Score: 4, Informative

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.