The Gay Thread

[innerSpaceman]

Sorry, SM, but I got the exact same message as Alex. A kid who's afraid to come out to his dad. Bad message.

What the frell does "come as you are" have to do with McDonald's? What, did they discriminate against gays in the past? Has anyone, anywhere on the world ever felt for a split second that they could not go into a freaking McDonald's? That message makes No Sense Whatsoever ... so I'm left with the actual events of the ad, which shows a gay boy who happens to be eating at McDonald's resisting yet another opportunity to come out of the closet to one of his parents.

Great stuff. Closeted gays make me so hungry for french fries. So, I repeat - WTF???

[innerSpaceman]

As for the Iranian issue, KLM should outright HALT fights to anyplace where it is a threat to the lives of their employees for them to spend a layover.

(though perhaps that's a poor choice of words when discussing gay flight attendants.)

[Alex]

Have there been any incidents of violence, intimidation, or other mistreatment of gay flight attendants in Iran or it is a more general fear knowing that homosexuality it criminalized (in which case Iran should not be unique).

I can understand from KLMs persepctive why making such exceptions is difficult. Maybe they can find a market solution. Put routes up for auction with the flight attenandants. The more who want a route the lower the pay for the route so the non-stop to St. Thomas is worked minimum wage but a premium is paid for Novosibirsk (and, presumably Tehran)

[alphabassettgrrl]

I can totally understand why they wouldn't want that particular route...

And I agree that every decision need not be based on money. I suspect that Iran is more than happy not to have gay flight attendants on the flights from/to their country. I wonder if they'd be happy to see KLM stop flying there.

[Gn2Dlnd]

How dare you impugn my patriotism! My soul is a red as the waxy coat on a delicious New York Gouda, as white as a beautiful Vermont Cheddar, and as blue as an artisanal blue cheese from Wisconsin.

That said, there are some people with whom I won't do business. I suppose it's different when your company is "owned" by soulless computers doing stock trades in increments of minutes.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Out singer Matt Zarley's new video "Had I Known"

[Alex]

No big fan of O'Reilly but I don't think he was comparing gays to al Qaeda. I think it was a very specific play on the comment immediately prior that the ad was part of a larger campaign showing all kinds of people going to McDonald's with the tagline "come as you are" and him riffing on whether they really want everybody to go to McDonald's and express who they are.

What I find odd is his absolute certainty that no ad like this would ever run in the U.S. I assume he means because it is gay-themed. If he's right, I hope it is because it is just a stupid ad (regardless of the gay theme).

[innerSpaceman]

I agree that, for once, O'Reilly wasn't gaybashing with his al Qaeda remark. He most definitely was, however, saying the ad would never play in the U.S. because of its gay theme. In that, he was gaybashing. And I'm sure he would, despite his purported business-freedom-uber-alis philosophy, bash McDonald's if it ever deemed it salesworthy to run such a gay-themed ad in these here united states.

[Strangler Lewis]

I'm not getting the overall positiveness of the ad. Is the father affirming in an understated way that he knows his son is gay and is encouraging him to tom around?

As for O'Reilly, he may not directly be comparing gays to al Qaeda, but it seems like these things don't get taken to such extremes except when gay or other minority issues are being promoted.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Would a mod be kind enough to put a "]" before "Bill" on post 424 please? The edit window has passed and I can't fix it myself.