Once again a brand is about to bite the dust over attempting to alienate a segment of its customer population. In a ridiculous statement, the chairman of the pasta company has said that they will not feature any gay families in its advertising. This has naturally created a social media firestorm of pasta-eaters banning the brand. When I see this kind of story, I can never imagine how such a moronic position happened in the first place, much less how it made it into mainstream media. 

Brand representatives are scrambling, asserting that the statement was a “mistake” and trying to retract and correct, positioning chairman Guido Barilla supports gay marriage (but not gay adoption.) In any case, he definitely doesn’t want gay people eating Barilla pasta.

#boycottbarilla is the trending hashtag, if you’re interested in following such things.

Me? I’m going for some homemade pasta.

What does Barilla need to do to fix this?

1. Apologize! “we’re sorry for being insensitive to people everywhere who love our pasta. We definitely will have people of all genders, races, sexual orientations and pasta preferences in all of our advertising going forward,” would be a good start.
2. Probably fire, or seriously demote Guido Barilla. He’s made that bed.
3. Make a large donation to a gay rights organization asap.
4. Launch a new campaign that demonstrates INCLUSION of all people who may or may not want to eat pasta. Jeez. Is it really that hard?

I don’t know about you, but I’m really sick of politics getting in the way of my food choices.