Hey, silly rabbits — remember Trix commercials? Trix looked so amazing on Trix commercials. It looked like the most delicious thing, like if Nerf Balls and cotton candy had a bunch of tiny, corn-based babies. (I mean… it’s conceivable, right? Ba-dum!) But! This post is about how Trix came to be embroiled in a narsty little proposal under ferocious debate in Minnesota right now, one that will culminate in a vote in a few months on whether to amend to the state’s constitution a ban on same-sex marriage. Homo hitchin’ is already illegal there, but an amendment would be some serious setting-in-stone of ugliness, an effort now spearheaded by beauties such as the National Organizhation for Marriage (or NOM…nom nom nom) and her congenial cousin Minnesota for Marriage, and probably also Michele Bachmann’s creepy husband.
So what does CEO Ken Powell of General Mills, the Minnesota-based maker of Trix and roughly 3 billion other staples in our nation’s well-worn tapestry of Food Products, decide to do? Something frackin’ decent, folks: he states publicly that he and his company oppose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. And he gives $10,000 to Minnesotans United for All Families to help fight it.
And now lots of people are boycotting General Mills. According to Dave, who’s very uncomfortable with the word “gay,” the president of NOM said that Powell’s remarks “will go down as one of the dumbest corporate PR stunts of all time.” (Which, like, I don’t know what the president of NOM’s daily duties entail, but I’m glad he’s taking time out of his busy schedule to update his Master List of Dumbest PR Stunts: 14th century BC to present.) NOM has set up a website where stalwart defenders of “traditional marriage” can add their names to an operatic boycott letter stocked with gut punches such as: “As long as food is produced by other companies my conscience is going to win out over the desire for another bowl of Lucky Charms.” Pure gold! There’s also a list of offending brands included, which might be helpful for any counter-boycotting our readers care to do (I myself was delighted to see that Bugles still exist, so I’ll be sauntering out to find some ASAP).
Meanwhile, Chris Kluwe, punter for the Minnesota Vikings, has been campaigning with Minnesotans for Equality against the amendment, and Kraft made a nationwide splash last week with its delicious-looking (but, sadly, not for sale) rainbow Oreo, for which Kraft and Oreo are now being boycotted too, I guess. Ditto Starbucks and Home Depot and of course JC Penney, which have all made publicly decent comments or decisions about equality recently and have, in turn, seen mean little backlashes and boycotts from innocent one-man-one-woman families under siege out there in the heartland. Looks like we’re all voting with our money now, whether we want to or not — one box of Big Gay Trix at a time. Nom away, folks!