You know the feeling when the heavy box you're lifting turns out to be empty? I just had the mental equivalent of that.

Apparently Heinz had a mayonnaise commercial showing two men kissing. One of them is "the mum" and making sandwiches in the kitchen for the kids. The "not mum" man kisses the mum goodbye.

There is nothing even remotely interesting or original about this ad, aside from the two male parents. This is at least as provocative as if it was a 1960s ad showing interracial parents -- of course, now that I stop to think about it, maybe this still applies :( -- but that's enough for this to be an interesting advertisement.

What really made me mad, though, is that Heinz pulled the ad due to some complaints to Ofcom (they regulate British communications). OK, so some bigoted wingnuts complain about this. This makes me angry. Heinz just went ahead and pulled the ad rather than stand up for decency. This makes me angrier.

Then I notice that Ofcom has an "ex kids" restriction on the ad, meaning that it must not be shown near children's programming. OK, now my rage meter is pegging into the red. Kids aren't allowed to see men kissing? A happy family is verboten because we have bigots out there? Did some religious bastard at Ofcom manage to slip in his or her personal beliefs into Ofcom regulations? This seriously pisses me off. Have our societal values become so fucking warped and perverted that something as unimportant as gender is considered to be this big of a deal? Where the fuck are people's priorities?

Seems the "ex kids" restriction is because the ad portrays food "high in fat, salt and sugar."

Oh, that's OK then.

I can't stop laughing.