Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Fresh from their battles with Ford and Walmart, the American Family Association is now taking on Ikea over a commercial that - gasp! - shows a family headed by a gay couple (you're supposed to whisper that part of it in polite company). See the AFA's breathless complaint here:
Their latest U.S.-aired commercial features a homosexual male couple and young female child on the floor, resting up against each other, as they lean on the front of their couch. The voiceover poses the question: "Why shouldn't sofas come in flavors, just like families?"This is just one of many pro-homosexual ads IKEA airs around the world.
Please let IKEA know that the promotion of homosexual couples as a "family" is offensive and undermines American values.
But here's the thing: they are a family, whether Donald Wildmon likes it or not. And there are several hundred thousand of families just like it in the United States, and millions more of them around the world. Do they magically stop being a family because a few bigots in Mississippi don't like the way the parents in those families have sex? I'd like to see Wildmon sit across a table from the Lofton family and tell them they're not a family.
Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau have adopted 5 at-risk children. Two of them were born HIV-positive. No one else would adopt any of these children and these two men took them in and gave them a loving home. This is the only family any of these children have ever known. And I'd like to see Wildmon look them in the eye and tell them that they're not a real family because the parents' sexual habits violate "American values."
And this whole notion of "American values" is simply idiotic. There is no such thing as "American values". I'm an American and I don't consider Wildmon's bigotry to be a "value" at all. And it's also clear that the American "family" Association is nothing of the sort. They only care about families that look like theirs. For them "family" is just buzzword, a euphemism for "get the fags."
Comments
That's funny I find the AFA to be offensive. They are undermining families and American values, by promoting their agenda they are keeping my family from getting the same protecttions that their family already enjoys.
Posted by: Tulle | January 18, 2007 9:38 AM
I am curious to see whether IKEA, as a Swedish company, is going to bent over.....
Posted by: Kim | January 18, 2007 9:40 AM
Why does Wildmon assume that the men in the ad are having sex? They might be married.
Posted by: kehrsam | January 18, 2007 9:55 AM
"I'm an American and I don't consider Wildmon's bigotry to be a "value" at all."
Ah, but you are obviously not a *real* American- which is to say, a non-ethnic white, Republican, Christian evangelical. Preferably with a thick southern accent.
Posted by: MJ Memphis | January 18, 2007 9:59 AM
Luckily, kehrsam, I had swallowed my coffee before reading your comment.
Posted by: Brian | January 18, 2007 10:02 AM
I don't really see that ad as being pro-homosexual. It doesn't say that being gay is good. It just doesn't say it's bad. It's not pro, it's neutral.
Posted by: Sam Lewis | January 18, 2007 10:53 AM
There is no neutral in a black-and-white world.
Posted by: eric | January 18, 2007 11:05 AM
Couldn't get the trackback thingy to work...
Anywhoo...Newsflash bigots: the suggestion that you, or any other individual or group of individuals, have the moral authority to unilaterally define what "family" means is both un-American and offensive to boot.
IKEA's response to the AFA should be, "Get Stuffed!"
Posted by: Bill Snedden | January 18, 2007 11:09 AM
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | January 18, 2007 11:31 AM
AFA = Anti Family Association.
Posted by: TomTallis | January 18, 2007 11:50 AM
Sam Lewis wrote:
But that's the thing. To Wildmon and his ilk, these people should not exist. Therefore, the mere acknowledgment that there are families headed by gay couples is an affront to "values." This is their way of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" rather than have to deal with the fact that there are gay people in this world and lots of them raise children.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 18, 2007 11:58 AM
The "value" Wildmon is promoting is the closet. He wants a return to the world he grew up in, where gay people pretended to be straight, straight people pretended to believe them, and decent folk never had to confront all that unpleasant business about men having sex with other men. That's not "neutral," it's soul-destroying.
Posted by: Jason | January 18, 2007 12:13 PM
Ohh kersham that was a good one.
I agree with Jason in the comment above. I simply can't understand why people prefer the lie. It appears they prefer a world filled with deception. Baffling.
Posted by: GH | January 18, 2007 12:45 PM
I did try rewriting their form letter to IKEA, but I don't think it will send it unless I register at their website. Damn.
Posted by: Andy | January 18, 2007 2:31 PM
Come on, how can you expect IKEA to respect American values? Just take a look at their furniture.
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | January 18, 2007 2:34 PM
Why does Wildmon assume that the men in the ad are having sex? They might be married.
Or they're brothers, one is a widower, and the other stopping by to help his brother and his daughter, who would then be the other guy's niece. But the AFA saw two guys enjoying each other's company (with their clothes on) and couldn't help thinking "GAY SEX!!!" Which shows us what's really on the AFA's minds...
Posted by: Raging Bee | January 18, 2007 2:41 PM
Come on, how can you expect IKEA to respect American values? Just take a look at their furniture.
Yes, it does have a certain euro-prole utilitarianism about it. But I love my Ikea sofa. The best part of their stores to me is the "marketplace" section. Lots of cheap but good quality household items.
Posted by: Jason | January 18, 2007 2:53 PM
Some of their products are crap. My mother had a lamp from IKEA in which the most stressed moving part was made of cheap plastic -- and broke after half a year. C-r-a-p!
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | January 18, 2007 6:02 PM
Actually, Ed, IIRC, the Lofton/Croteau family have had at least 4 foster children (all from FL), who were all HIV+ at birth. Because FL denies gays and lesbians the right to adopt, but allows them to be foster parents (no, it does not make sense), that is the only legal arrangement they are allowed with their children.
They were basically asked to take these children home to care for them until they died. One daughter did tragically die at the age of 6, but the other three are healthy teenagers. One of them, Bert, seroconverted to HIV- (sometimes children receive only the mother's antibodies, not the virus, and most tests look for the antibodies), which sparked their fight against the state of FL, which wanted to remove this child from their home to be adopted by a "normal" family, despite his knowing no other family his whole life.
Lofton and Croteau moved to OR at some point (although the foster children continue to be wards of FL), and then were asked to foster two more HIV+ children - two brothers. I believe they have adopted these two children, who were OR wards, and therefore adoptable.
No matter what the legal arrangements, of course, the AFA are still freaked out that any child is being raised by gay or lesbian people. They refuse to believe we could ever have loving, supportive relationships with our children. Thankfully, my sister and brother-in-law do not subscribe to that thinking, so they are more than happy to let me sit their two boys whenever I happen to be around.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | January 18, 2007 6:37 PM
I knew the moment I saw that commercial I'd be reading about it right here!
Posted by: twincats | January 18, 2007 9:24 PM
I'm not a big fan of Scandinavian design but this is a great example of the power of capitalism in the service of progressive values.
SNL's 1991 Schmitt's Gay ad was way ahead of its time.
Posted by: Colugo | January 20, 2007 11:48 AM