As you probably already know, right-wing commentators had a complete and utter meltdown over Coca-Cola’s “America the Beautiful” ad during the Super Bowl. Along with complaints that the ad featured eight different languages, several pundits criticized the inclusion of same-sex parents.
Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality was among them, complaining that Coca-Cola is trying to “pander to the ‘Gay’ Lobby” in its attempt to have Americans “conditition to accept sexual perversion as normal.”
"Coke's Super Bowl ad is only the latest step in the escalating government-corporate campaign to normalize homosexuality in the culture,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.
“Americans are being conditioned to accept sexual perversion as normal and good, and there is some big corporate money behind it,” LaBarbera told LifeSiteNews. “It's sad that families can't even watch the Super Bowl anymore without having their faith undermined.”
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“Common sense, reason, and centuries of Judeo-Christian history tell us that it is best for children to have a mom and a dad. This is what responsible companies should celebrate,” LaBarbera told LifeSiteNews. “Yet instead Coke chose to pander to the 'Gay' Lobby by honoring homosexual parenting – in this case a household that intentionally denies children a mother.”
LaBarbera said there was one solution to cultural messages promoting any kind of sexual immorality. “Parents must take proactive steps to explain to their children why biblical morality is preferable to an ideology and lifestyle that celebrates sexual sin in the name of 'diversity,'” he said.
Showcasing homosexuals alongside ethnic minorities places those who object on the defensive against charges they are “racist,” he said.
This is rather awkward since evidently LaBarbera and the other anti-gay activists trashing the Coca-Cola ad might want to do some research into the author of “America the Beautiful,” Katherine Lee Bates:
The author of this iconic anthem of American patriotism was Katherine Lee Bates. In a brilliant lampoon of the backlash against the Coke commercial, Stephen Colbert pointed out that Bates was a lesbian. He could also have added that she was also a Christian socialist and an ardent foe of American imperialism.
Bates (1859-1929), a well-respected poet and professor of English at Wellesley College, was part of progressive reform circles in the Boston area, concerned about labor rights, urban slums and women's suffrage.
For decades Bates lived with and loved her Wellesley colleague Katharine Coman, founder of the college's economics department, who authored The History of Contract Labor in the Hawaiian Islands and The Economic History of the Far West. Coman was also a poet. She and Bates jointly wrote English History as Taught by English Poets.
Although they lived together for 25 years in what was then called a "Boston Marriage," they could not publicly acknowledge their intimate relationship. When Coman died, however, Bates published Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance that celebrated their love and their involvement in the radical and social reform movements of their day.
Were Bates and Coman alive today, they would probably have taken advantage of Massachusetts' law allowing same-sex couples to marry -- a law that folks like Limbaugh find appalling.
Bates' circle of reformers and radicals -- including union activists, feminists, and housing crusaders -- were strong advocates for immigrants. Bates and Coman volunteered at Denison House, a Boston settlement house that worked to improve the lives of immigrants who lived in Boston's slums and worked in its sweatshops. Denison House was founded by their Wellesley colleague Vida Scudder, another radical socialist, feminist, and lesbian. It was modeled on Hull House, founded by Jane Addams in Chicago.
