Hostility against LGBT Community: Hungary applauds Russia, Turkey censors gay apps, Merkel and Barilla against Gays

Even the new Pope has recently demonstrated awareness for the need to acknowledge the fact of different sexual orientations existing. But a few powerful anti-gay leaders feel confident enough to position themselves against open societies and equal rights for members of the LGBT community. After demonstrations against gay marriage in France, Putin’s Russia endorsed a new (!) law banning the promotion of homosexuality and now gets applause from EU member state Hungary. German Christian leaders Merkel (Federal government) and Seehofer (Bavarian government) both publicly opposed gay rights and subsequently won election. Turkey has just pulled the plug for a gay dating app based on a non-official Court decision. And this week, the Italian pasta entrepreneur Guido Barilla has publicly invited gay consumers to eat somebody else’s pasta. Besides an enormous shitstorm, he also gets support from right-wing traditionalists who keep on claiming the term ‘family’ to be exclusive to partnerships of one man and one woman.

Even if the world might not have been surprised about Putin’s hostile introduction a new anti-gay law, the official support for International LGBT campaigns in criticising Russia was very low. Some governments said they were ‘concerned’ and even the IOC only had questions about their Olympic Games to take place in the discriminating country. Also the Worldwide Olympic Top Partners Coca Cola, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung, Procter & Gamble and Visa did not even comment on the fact that their money will implicitly support anti-gay Russia. Putin’s calculation seems to work out fine, and he even gets support from Hungary – the EU country that has recently started to undermine democratic principles.

Also in Turkey, several developments point away from the Western orientation the country had achieved over the past decades. The right-wing Islamic government has recently introduced religiously motivated laws that ban the selling of alcohol anywhere near Mosques or schools – i.e. everywhere in the City Centre – during the night. Restaurants are required to hide bottles from public views and advertisement for alcohol will be banned. This past week, the government has censored an internet-based gay dating app, which is no longer accessible anywhere in Turkey. Human rights experts see this as another threat of freedom in the country.

But also in the West, homophobia has become more accepted in the recent past: In France, thousands of protestors marched on the streets to oppose the newly introduced legal right for gays and lesbians to get married. In Germany, two top politicians – chancellor Merkel and Bavarian minister president Seehofer – have just been re-elected and had specifically opposed gay marriage and adoption rights during the election campaigns while claiming this as an exclusive right for a man and a woman. In these and many other cases the mechanism is the same: If a person feels powerful and safe enough, they will position themselves as anti-gay, knowing that it won’t harm their success while it – at the same time – will activate and encourage a few more previously silent opponents of gay rights.

This is what has now happened for anti-gay remarks of Italian pasta entrepreneur Guido Barilla. Asked about their cliché-styled, heterosexist advertisement, he said they would never consider gay-themed ads, adding that ‘if they don’t like this, they can eat somebody else’s pasta’. The mind-set behind the words seems to be so obvious that an immediate shitstorm was created over Barilla with boycott demands. The company has published an attempt to apologise, which included ‘respect for gays’ but still claimed to exclude homosexual images from their ads.

It has only taken one day until the story made it into the headline news of the mainstream press. While the uproar from the LGBT Community was quite expectable, other reactions are interesting: On a number of activist blogs, anti-gay users post their support for Barilla saying they will from now on only buy Barilla and that they are happy for a company to stand up for their traditional family values. But feminists have not (yet) accused Barilla for his traditionalist gender role assumptions. One of his explanations for the focus on the traditional family was that ‘the woman plays a central role in the family’. Based on this, we sent an official inquiry about women in Barilla’s management echelons but got no response.

What has not been noted by any commentator so far: Over 90% of food commercials show heterosexual couples only – and would not consider to include occasional gay images. In that respect, Barilla has not done anything different from almost all other food giants. Ironically, it was Barilla’s bread brand WASA (formerly Swedish) that broadcasted a gay-vague TV commercial in 2002 with two guy having breakfast together. Other International Barilla brands include Harrys (France), Filiz (Turkey), Misko (Mexico) and Mulino Bianco (Italian biscuits). The Barilla group has some 15,000 employees, more than 1,000 of whom are statistically gay or lesbian. Guido Barilla is said to own one of the ten most expensive paintings (for which he paid more than 100 Million Euros): Pablo Picasso’s ‘Garcon à la pipe’ – the motive is an interesting choice for a billionaire with homophobic sentiments.