"Love Calls Back" Ad During Tonys Telecast Has People Weeping

A scene from the Verizon/Pflag ad "Love Call Back."

Last night, during the Tony Awards on television, Verizon, the telecommunications giant, and Pflag, a advocacy group for the LGBTQ community, aired an ad that had many weeping, including me.

The ad, calls "Up To Speed," or "Love Calls Back," featured young LGBTQ people who were estranged from parents or other loved ones.

The conversations when these youths came out of the closet to their families went badly, so there was little or no communication after that.  

Everybody hurt because of these situations, obviously.

In the ad, Verizon and Pflag arranged do-overs for these initial conversations. Parents, brothers and others who initially had reacted badly to their kids' orientation since the first bad conversation had time to think about it, and had come to realize there really wasn't anything wrong with their LGBTQ kids, and that they still loved them.

The ad is a nice bit of hope for people who are estranged, and I hope it encourages more do-over calls to reunite people.  The whole thing, of course, is timed to coincide with June, which is Pride Month.

I fully realize that not all families have such happy endings. Some LGBTQ youth and adults remain estranged from stubborn, ignorant parents forever, which is sad to say the least.

I was lucky when I came out. My father immediately supported me. My mother reacted extremely harshly and negatively, but eventually came around. It took a little work, but she did it.

The video is below.  The first 1:40 of the video explains what it does. After that Kleenex alert!  It is a weeper, but worth watching:

Intensive Care Unit Babies Become Superheroes In Kansas City

An itty bitty Batman rests in the NICU of
St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City. Photo by Sally Morrow

I'm not a dad, but I can imagine how crushingly scary it is to have a newborn baby in the intensive care unit.

These parents really just want their kids to have a nice, normal childhood free of hospital stays and worries about health and death. 

You can't take ill babies out the NICU, but you can take them into Halloween, and the normal kid stuff they should enjoy today.

So, the NICU at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City and the March of Dimes teamed up to make sure these little babies had their own Halloween costumes, says Good Morning America.

The kids are too young to understand Halloween, of course. (Hell, I'm 54 and I still don't understand Halloween). But the parents get a little levity and "normalcy" for themselves and their kids.

Parents get to pick out the Halloween costumes, based on the personality of their kids. There's lots of superheroes and butterflies and princesses in the NICU, and a couple of the obligatory Kansas City Royals baseball players.

Additionally, the families get the following, says Good Morning America:

"......the volunteers and nurses provided the families with a 'trick or treat, smell my feet' card with the newborns' tiny footprints, a hand-crocheted pumpkin filled with treats and a Halloween book that the parents and babies can read together next year."

This is a great idea that I hope spreads to NICU's all over the nation.

Nabisco Lovingly Tells Honey Maid Ad Gay Family Critics To Go Pound Sand

Nabisco, makers of tons of stuff, including Honey Maid graham crackers, released a bunch of warm, fuzzy ads last month talking about how families come in all shapes and sizes.

A still from the first Honey Maid ad that raised
the ire of conservatives. 

One of the families consisted of two gay dads and their kids, who of course love each other, AND Honey Maid graham crackers.

(The ad also featured a tattooed rock drummer dad and an interracial family, which I'm sure helped send some extreme conservatives over the deep end.)

But the gay family raised the ire of groups like One Million Moms, who urge boycotts of every company they think promote sin.

I don't think there are one million moms who are members of One Million Moms and I think the few remaining must be dying of starvation because they've pretty much urged that we boycott everything, but that's another story.

This time, One Million Moms said they objected to Honey Maid's use of the word "wholesome" to describe the two gay dads and urged us all to write angry letters to the company.

I'm afraid I didn't write that letter because I was too busy driving to the store to buy Honey Maid graham crackers, so I'm sure One Million Moms will urge people send angry letters to me, too.

And a still from the second ad, which tells
conservative critics, lovingly, to go pound sand.  

But still, One Million Moms was pretty ticked at the makers of this ad.

They said:  "Nabisco should be ashamed of themselves for their latest Honey Maid and Teddy Graham cracker commercial where they normalize sin," wrote the group. "This commercial not only promotes homosexuality, but then calls the advertisement wholesome."

Maybe One Million Moms has a point. No, the two gay dads aren't the problem, and they do seem to be a nice family.

But if the dads feed their kids too many Honey Maid graham crackers and the kids get fat and unhealthy as a result, then that's not particularly wholesome.

However, it looks like the kids get the crackers only as a treat every once in awhile so it's all good.

This past week, Honey Maid acknowledged their conservative critics with a follow up ad, which perfectly, and lovingly, tells One Million Moms to go pound sand. It probably didn't hurt that positive reactions to the original ad outnumbered negative ones by a 10 to one margin, so Nabisco pretty much felt safe with the new ad.

It's a nice follow-up ad that has gone viral, is nice, and probably helped to sell even MORE Honey Maid graham crackers.  So the ad agency is doign their job well, too.

Here's the lovely ad:

A Lucky Find, A Smart Judge, Some Compassion, an Adoption and a Marriage

An article in today's New York Times is going super viral today. I want to share it, too, it's so good.

An unusually fantastic article in today's New York Times
deserves a good read.

I won't add much of my own commentary here. It's just an incredible story, written by playwright Peter Mercurio  about how a family, his family in New York formed through a series of odd events, some smart people, a great judge and other good factors.

It's one of the most compelling, sweet reads I've had in a long time.

Click on this link right here and enjoy this wonderful and true story. You won't regret it.