Barilla Pasta Against Gay Families:

Last Thursday, the company president of Barilla Pasta, a very popular pasta company all around the world, said he will never allow for gay families to be shown on any commercials or advertisements.  Guido Barilla, the company president, said “We won’t include gays in our ads, because we like the traditional family.  If gays don’t like it, they can always eat another brand of pasta.  Everyone if free to do what they want, provided it doesn't bother anyone else”.

Shortly after this was said by Guido, on twitter the hash tag “Boycott Barilla” was trending.  Now several people all around the world, straight and gay, are boycotting all of Barilla’s products.  Guido later says in an interview that his idea of a traditional family was one with a man, woman, and children. 

To me, this makes no sense why Barilla would even make a remark about not letting gay families be in their advertisements.  First off, you never see advertisements of families with same-sexed parents anyways, so why feel the need to go public and say why you don’t want to include them.  All the other companies just do not include them in their advertisements, and do not go public to explain why, like Barilla did.  There just was no reason for them to say anything about it when they could have kept it to themselves and saved themselves a lot of trouble.

Guido Barilla also says that he does support gay marriage but is against them adopting children.  This is why he would have no problem having gay couples on his advertisements, but not gay families.  This is odd because usually if someone is against gay families, they are also against the marriage of same sexed people.

Not as huge of deal here in America, but in Europe, especially in Italy, it is stirring up a big debate.  Guido Barilla was even interviewed on a popular radio station in Italy after his comment about gay families in Barilla’s advertisements.  On this live radio broadcast he continued to talk about how he likes to feature the “traditional family” which to him is a man, woman, and children.  Later in the week Guido came to say that he was sorry for his comment and that he respects everyone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/barilla-pasta-anti-gay_n_3995679.html

Sieczkowski, Cavan. "Barilla Pasta Won't Feature Gay Families In Ads, Says Critics Can 'Eat Another Brand Of Pasta'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Sept. 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.