The American Family Association has convinced Heinz to suppress a Deli Mayo ad that hasn’t even appeared on American TV.
The spot features a male couple kissing good-bye. And unlike the trashy Snickers kiss ad, which generated national backlash during Super Bowl 2007, it takes a step toward normalizing the gay family:
Morning sun pours through an ordinary kitchen. Two kids dash downstairs to collect lunch from Mom, who turns out to be a man with a deli cap and a deep Brooklyn accent. Dad, a British businessman, yanks on his jacket and prepares to head out the door, when Mom goes “Hey — aren’t you forgettin’ somethin’?”
The dreaded Parent Kiss ensues. It’s chaste but loving — a familiar halfway-out-the-door kiss.
The AFA launched a MoveOn-style email campaign to 3.5 million subscribers, denouncing it as the “kind of ad we can expect to see in California as they prepare to vote on homosexual marriage.”
Okay, that’s just plain bitchy.
But it also worked: Heinz called the AFA to say complaints have bogged its system down, and the ad will not run again.
It was already running in Mother England — the source of all the oppression from which the Puritans sought to liberate themselves. History’s got a bitchin’ backhand.
