GLR March-April 2023

BTW

Not In Your Hand Seems it’s been a while since the religious Right went into full freakout mode over a logo or ad campaign, but they pretty much lost their minds over a change in those multi-colored and commercially personified candies known as M&M’s. At issue is Mars Inc.’s introduction of a new mix of colors, and thus characters, in some of its packaging. The new line includes only the three female characters (green, brown, and

purple), two of whom are hold ing hands and appear to be more than just friends. There’s even a slogan under the inverted car toon: “Supporting women flip ping the status quo.” Okay, so the morality police are upset about the lesbian pair; we get that. What’s amazing is the way they piled on with invective di

rected not at Mars Inc. but at the people being represented in the image. Daily Wire editor Ben Shapiro asked: “Women, do you feel represented now ... on the M&M package that you’re guzz ling down, lonely in your apartment with your wine and your cats? How’s that going for you?” Tucker Carlson outdid his usual virulence, singling out the “plus-size, obese purple M&M” for special ridicule. Um, Tuck, the last time we checked, all of the M&M’s were equally round. Shifting Fulcrum In its eternal quest to find a conservative columnist to balance its lineup, The New York Times has hired an attorney named David French, who drew immediate fire from the LGBT community. French has close ties to a group called Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), whose entire raison d’être is opposition to LGBT civil rights. As senior counsel for ADF, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group, French is big on defending people who’ve been taken to task for promoting anti-gay propaganda in places like class rooms and psychotherapy sessions. He’s a defender of “conver sion therapy” and wants to ban what he calls “transgenderism.” Anyway, having watched both David Brooks and Ross Douthat abandon Trump and drift slowly to the left—at least relative to the Republican Party— The Times may just have found the guy who can satisfy conservatives’ demand for “balance” at a time when the fulcrum has shifted decidedly to the right. The fact that French has earned his extremist bona fides entirely through his opposition to LGBT rights does give one pause; the biblically in clined might be reminded of the sacrificial lamb. Swearing by Superman There’s a new gay congressman in town (Washington, DC, that is), and he’s already distinguished himself in another way by being sworn in, not on a Bible, but on a comic book! There were actually three items under hand when Robert Garcia took the oath of office: an original Super man #1 comic from 1939, a photo of his parents, and a copy of his citizenship certificate. Garcia stressed the importance of

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