As Minnesota for Marriage protested outside of the General Mills headquarters in Minneapolis last week, a young gay activist and a few of his friends decided to counter the not-so-positive message with their own take on the “glitter bomb.”
The protest was organized after General Mills brand Oreo was featured in a rainbow-themed Pride advertisement. The ad, originally posted to the social networking site Facebook, created an instant firestorm among anti-gay groups and prompted a call for protest.
“We’ve heard from hundreds of people who are extremely disappointed with General Mills’ opposition to the marriage amendment,” said Minnesota for Marriage Deputy Campaign Manager Andy Parrish when the group announced a planned protest of the company's headquarters.
In news that we already knew before it was news, former Speaker of the House and perennial divorcee Newt Gingrich has officially dropped his bid to become the next president of the United States.
Gingrich made the announcement at a Wednesday press conference.
In a video concession posted on the internet Tuesday by the Gingrich campaign, Newt thanked supporters for fueling his long-shot candidacy and called his bid “a terrific campaign.”
Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney claimed six of yesterday's 11 primaries to come away the evening's big winner.
Romney won a majority vote in Alaska, Idaho, Ohio, Virginia, Massachuettes and Vermont. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum claimed the top spot in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Voters here in Georgia decidedly chose former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who claimed nearly half of all the GOP's primary ballots cast in his home state.
Romney finished second in Georgia, with 25.9 percent of the votes cast. Santorum finished third with 19.6 percent and Libertarian-leaning Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) finished fourth with a mere 6.5 percent of the total, according to the Associated Press.
Former Speaker of the House and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich really wants your vote. At least, that's the impression we got when we saw Gingrich's campaign ads appearing on our website late yesterday afternoon.
Gingrich, a serial adulterer, has made no bones about his anti-gay positions and the threat gay marriage would bring to “traditional” marriages should they become legal across the country. The anti-gay rhetoric has hit a fever pitch this election cycle, with all of the party's major candidates signing a National Organization for Marriage pledge to defend “traditional” marriage.
It's no secret that we sell ad space on our website. Since we're a free newspaper, our main source of revenue is print and web ads. When we haven't completely filled our inventory, we turn to third-party ad services that give us a small distribution fee for running network ads.
Newt Gingrich's victory in South Carolina surprised many in the media, myself included, because we assumed that the GOP electorate would not be able to look beyond the former Speaker of the House's ethical probes, his forced banishment from House of Representatives and the fact that he's had more than one marriage end because of an affair.
Boy, was I wrong. Not only did Newt storm ahead in one of evangelical America's strongholds, he's leading the polls in the next primary contest, a decidedly less religiously-driven Florida.
How has Gingrich managed to make the GOP's voters forget (or choose to ignore) his sordid past?
In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, Gingrich says his appeal is all about redemption.
The voters of South Carolina reminded the country that the GOP primary process if far from decided after overwhelmingly voting for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in the country's third primary contest of the 2012 election season.
Gingrich, the former congressman from Georgia, secured some 40 percent of the total vote, according to the Associated Press. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, claimed just 27.8 percent, a distant second.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Minn.) finished third with 17 percent and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) rounded out the top four with 13 percent of the state's primary votes.
The field of GOP presidential hopefuls became a little less crowded today as Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that he would cease his campaign to become his party's nominee for the 2012 election.
Perry joins Atlanta businessman Herman Cain, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former Ambassador Jon Huntsman as GOP candidates to drop out of the race.
Perry finished the Iowa caucuses fifth and received less than one percent of the total vote cast in New Hampshire to claim sixth.
Perry made waves when he first entered the campaign, but a series of missteps, including a particularly embarrassing moment during a Nov. 9 debate where he could only remember two of the three federal agencies he proposed to eliminate, derailed his campaign before the first ballot was cast.
The Grand Old Party has had a hard time dealing with LGBT activists this campaign season. From “glitter bombs” to awkward responses in town hall meetings, this year's crop of GOP presidential candidates has been forced to stand by their positions on marriage, gays and lesbians in the military and employment non-discrimination.
Thanks to the power of social media and the accessibility of amateur video for the world to see, activists have been able to highlight the often hypocritical or nonsensical anti-gay positions as the GOP's candidates make their way across the early primary states.
Take Michele Bachmann, for example. She and her husband Marcus run a Christian-based counseling clinic that practices “reparative” therapy in her homestate of Minnesota. “Pray the gay away,” in other words. That, and Michele's anti-gay positions, led to a series of “glitter bombs” and even an occupation of the Bachmann clinic by “gay barbarians” over the summer.