Thanks Coke for the Super Bowl commercial… but, ‘Is It the Real Thing?’

[William769]

Very good article to read.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/02/thanks-coke-for-the-super-bowl-commercial-but-is-it-the-real-thing/

Also here is the letter sent to Coco-Cola.

Dear Coca-Cola,

Thank you. I know that you have taken a great deal of flack over your commercial “It’s beautiful”. The commentary has been anything but beautiful from a certain faction of our country.

By the time I checked the #Coke Twitter stream last night, the comments had swung out hard in your defense, and I think the viral buzz around your 60 second spot will give you more than your money’s worth of exposure.

In my home, your visibility was well beyond a fleeting glance. As a gay dad, I wanted my sons to see the promotion you had given to important American principles. I showed them your commercial and the “behind the scenes” video. My sons are both now eleven years old, both came from drug addicted parents, and both were adopted by me through foster care. My sons have two dads.

Last year, my son Jesse was glued to the Super Bowl, and he saw nothing that reflected back the picture of our family. You changed that this year, so again, thank you.

This year, my kids loved your commercial and embraced all for which it stood. Jason’s heritage is Mexican and he appreciated his background being acknowledged.

After the ice skating scene, both heads swiveled towards me and said in unison, “Dad! When can we go ice skating?!” I admit, they are not aware that the public depiction of a family with same sex parents as a big deal. To them, such a family playing on ice is the novelty. I am glad that is their perception.

It cannot be the perception kids like them in Russia have, however. Families like ours in the country hosting the Olympics are currently living in fear. The gay parents there are not dreaming of strangers asking them to hold hands, they are afraid of legislation that is a vote away from taking their kids from them.

Here in America, I can send your “behind the scenes” video out through my social media contacts. For a Russian gay dad to do so, is a criminal act.

My sons have had the love and safety of a home for their entire lives, in Russia, kids such as mine number over 400,000 and are locked away in orphanages with parents like me prevented from adopting them.

You have been deservedly under fire for your sponsorship of the Sochi Olympics. Now you have shown great courage in the United States on behalf of diversity. There are those who are cynical that you may be playing both sides and looking for the maximum in financial gain.

To use your own branding catch phrase, they are asking, and I am asking, about your support for freedom and diversity: Is it the real thing?

Will you blindly fund a regime that would deem your current public outreach as a crime or will you still stand for diversity in a country whose population is not yet open to hearing it? Will your commercial for the Olympics still feature a family like mine?

I am begging for you to do so.

Thank you for remembering my family at the Super Bowl. Please do not forget our Russian counterparts. They need your voice even more than my kids do. Please make this real and not some marketing ploy.

We’ll be watching.

[William769]

1. Kick.