Tag Archives: gay rights

After watching a movie on same-sex marriage we started the discussion about how different politicians spoke out about same-sex marriage legalization in NY.

I would like to expand more on how gay sentiment gets played out in different fields of social life, mainly politics and marketing. Election campaigns are staged around controversial topics that candidates debate about. The job of political analytic for candidate is to find out what opinion on issue is more popular among his/her electorate and  build the campaign accordingly. Therefore candidates from conservative areas would be more likely to oppose same-sex marriage. Good example of it is possible GOP presidential candidate and Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann, who supports so called reparative therapy and theory that homosexuality should and can be cured. On the other side of political spectrum, politicians in urban areas with large and organized gay communities, like New York, use issue of homosexual rights in opposite way. They learned to gain from exploiting gay sentiment and get actively involved in gay rights legislations  and in  queer events, like pride parade that boasts more and more politician’s floats. Perfect example of such politician is Andrew Cuomo, whom HRC (Human Rights Campain-enormous national scale organization that promotes LGBTQ rights) portrayed as a hero of NY same-sex marriage legalization. HRC was giving out “Thank you Cuomo” (showed above) and “Promise Kept” banners and also send out all members emails asking to sign under a Thank You letter to him.

Marketing industry was a way ahead of politics in exploiting the likes and desires of queers. Not only in gay media, but everywhere on the streets, in the stores and on TV we can see adds that speculate on homosexual strive for equality, or use highly sexual gay images or emphasize company’s commitment to the equal rights.

Maybe Andrew Cuomo learned how to become popular in LGBTQ community and benefit from it, from his brother in law Kenneth Cole. Designer’s latest pro-gay marriage adds can be seen everywhere, including one outside of Vertical Campus on the side of 25th street.

Just one more add that ties together advertising and politics…