Activist Group brings down billboard...

Well, it's not like I'm saying Dracula needs to be up there on the gay.com billboard - although I'm sure it would be a half naked Dracula who somehow survived getting a tan. But why not use something this Article 8 Alliance can't call "pornographic"? Something without the "come together" slogan. I ask on behalf of the whole gay phenomenon in nature... the whole reality that being homosexual means you simply love someone of the same sex as yourself. Not this, "Heyyyyy.. being gay is all about SEX and nudity and talking dirty." It's really obvious to me why Article 8 Alliance said gay.com was a pornographic website based off that billboard. And why does the American flag have to be wrapped around those two men? That does seem rather antagonistic. Afterall, men from other countries are part of gay.com. It isn't all the United States.

Plus, I am bothered by stereotypes. I'm bothered by what they can do to people - giving them complexes, turning people into clones, etc. I know it's all very rampant and hard to stop... but I offer my opinion in hopes for a better future.

I don't think that billboard is about sex and nudity and talking dirty, to be honest. I don't think it's pornographic at all and I don't think it differs from ads for Internet communities with a more "traditionally heterosexual" profile. I really think you seem to be mistaking this ad for being an ad for the entire gay community, which it's not (if it was I would agree with you). It's an ad for gay.com and I don't think it's misleading or out of line. At the same time I can understand that you get tired of being treated as a minority that is different from the rest of society and that this ad mostly focuses on sexuality and that it's annoying that that's the part of it all that gets attention in media. But that's probably because that's what anti gay movements like this 8 Alliance wants us to focus on. They want the gay community to appear as perverse and as only thinking about sex. At the same time, I would still find it difficult to make an ad for gay.com totally without focusing on sexuality since that's basically, as far as I've understood it, the only thing about gay people that is different from straight people. And the flag, I mean, isn't the site mostly frequented by americans? To answer your question about why the flag is in there. I guess it could be a statement, like saying that gay men are also proud americans or that America belongs to ALL americans. I don't know...

Yes, that is true. But that is nothing exclusive for gay people or for so called minorities for that matter. Everybody is stereotyped and especially in ads and commercials. Kids, parents, athletes, doctors, nurses, mechanics, grandparents, musicians, dogs. When making an ad you're always looking for the "typical" something. And when making an ad for gay.com, what is the typical gay man? When you think about it, what it all comes down to in the end, which you really cannot say is stereotyping, is that the typical gay man is a man that likes other men. I think it would be far more stereotyping to have a (fully dressed) hairdresser and a fashion designer smiling at each other up there on the billboard. More fun but more stereotyping.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

It's a dating company, of course they aren't going to have average looking people on their advert. It is exactly the same for straight dating agencies. People want to think they can date attractive people through the company, it's an image.

I think the whole thing is a bit of fuss about nothing since they only had one day left to run and apparently the ad had been up for weeks with no protest. I do think that Clear Channel need to be a bit more careful before caving to an orchestrated campaign by a hate group in future, though.

What puzzled me was people saying they didn't like it because of the flag. Do people find their own flag offensive? It seems to crop up quite a lot in American advertising. Perhaps when people say that, they mean they don't like the flag being associated with gay people.

In the case of some people, you are right. Certainly though, that isn't the only reason for objection.

I don't like anybody co-opting the flag in order to promote their own special interest. A very diverse group of people make up America. It is wrong, in my view, for any small group to use the flag in their advertizing, because the suggestion in so doing is that theirs is "the american way".

Also, taking the flag out of the context of ads, I feel it cheapens the flag when it is used as a clothing design. Ballcaps, teeshirts, bikinis... it's taking an important symbol of a set of ideals and turning it into a commodity.

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What are we enve talking about this for? This whole situation seems like a win for all parties involved. Article 8 Alliance Gets to brag about how powerful it is an boost its ranks, Gay.com get an ad running for weeks pulled one day early and ends up getting more pub out of the whole deal than they could have wished for, Clear Channel avoids the wrath of the Focus on the Family's of the world and is still able to maintain what seems to be a positive relationship with an advertiser. What is the downside for any of the groups involved? Everyone wins.

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Justice will be served/ And the battle will rage/ This big dog will fight/ When you rattle his cage/ And you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A./ Cause we`ll put a boot in your ass/ It`s the American way.
Courtesy Of The Red, White & Blue - Toby Keith

Someone has to lose something for us to talk about it?

Well in this case I would say so. Otherwise the conversation will just become; "I do like hate groups." Or will become "Homosexuality is/isn't wrong." And tif that is what the point of starting the tread was, wqe could have saved a few post and gotten to the point.

Well, I would say the discussion is being held on a higher level than that. For my own part I find the discussion I've been having with Sexy is really interesting. We're probably discussing it because it needs to be discussed or we feel like WE need to discuss it. I think there are other things on this board being discussed that are far more irrelevant. Like that thing about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or the relationship between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Hmm... Pidd, I don't really have anything else to say. Your last post made me see the whole thing a bit differently. You're right.

True... putting someone like Bruce Vilanch on the gay.com billboard would NOT attract customers.

They only had one day left and it had been up for weeks? Doesn't sound that bad at all...

Correct. These people fantasize about a totally impossible America, where differences don't exist.

I think that's only if you believe it to be so. For me, flags are just artwork that you know is also the official flag of some country. Now, I don't know if you can always use the flag to promote anything because art like that should be copyrighted and such, but I assume the American flag acts very differently. Some things with the flag will suggest what they're saying is "The American Way", but if they're not suggesting it outright, why care to think that way? You might be wrong. I don't care what you do with the flag. Paint it on your breasts, if you like.

I don't get it... I bought an American flag t-shirt after 9/11. How does that cheapen the flag? Now, thanks to technology, we can get the flag out there and be seen on anything. What's so bad about that? THAT HELPS THE FLAG LIVE ON! I think that if you don't put the flag on those kinds of things, more people would forget about America, stop being patriotic, stop caring... you are right that the official design for the United States is a SYMBOL... it's not just a flag anymore. It BEGAN as a flag. It could have begun as a thong... everywhere there would be thongs waving high up on poles outside schools. "I pledge allegiance to the thong..." every morning over the announcements. And if people started putting the thong's image on t-shirts and baseballs caps, you'd be like, "I wish they'd stop putting the thong on t-shirts and hats!"

I can't be wrong all the time.

True, there are things on this board that are mindlessly irrelevant. That, however, doesn't make this discussion more relevant. But if it is a discussion you feel is needed, who am I to criticize?

For that I apologies.

That's how symbolism works: people agree that something is going to represent something else. The flag represents the ideals of the country. If it didn't, people wouldn't use it, burn it, fight over it... or have a system of proper ways of handling it in place.

Pity it didn't, as the Far Right wouldn't be nearly so apt to use it as their symbol.

My basic point was that the flag represents all US people, and it's a country made up of diverse people. For one group to co-opt that symbol is wrong, because it goes counter to the basic tenets of americanism I've named. And to commercialize that symbol is disrespectful of it. It's a bit like the commercialization of holidays that were once an observance of nice things, that have become shopping melee's. I wouldn't call it the destruction of society, just an unfortunate and rather selfish misuse by those who sell it.

Good point. I find it interesting though, how the American flag is used a lot in advertising in the USA, it's not the same at all in the UK.

Yeah, I think that's down to ours being a newer country. It's not been all that long ago that the US was trying to establish itself as a nation, and promotion a sense of national identity. It's something that, given US dominance on the world scene, we should probably veer away from, since it comes off rather prickish out of context.