Family Values and Graham Crackers

Last month the “Honey Maid” graham cracker brand released a video ad touting the wholesomeness of it’s signature graham crackers. The ad showed clips of various families smiling and generally having fun. These clips included a family with two dad’s, a family with a heavily tattooed musician father, a white person’s hand holding a black person’s hand, and a family with a military dad, all overlaid on simple background music. Just another vignette of life in modern America, brought to you by a cracker company.

No one could have predicted that the right wing-nut-o-sphere would go into full assault mode over this simple ad. But, they did.  Apparently, showing video clips of a family with two dad’s was a declaration of war against all that is right and holy in the American Way of Life. In the interests of full disclosure I will post the ad here for my loyal reader’s viewing, to determine for yourselves  the proper level of outrage that should be charged against this 32 second ad.

So there you have it. Honey Maid graham crackers launched a full-body assault on wholesomeness.

Leading the defense of American decency is an Evangelical organization that calls itself “American Decency Association” (ADA) and purports to speak for all Americans in defending the holy against the profane. In a post on their website, Crumbling Crackers and Cultures, the ADA explained in great detail why this cracker ad was so offensive. Their post included the following:

[…] Satan wants us to see sin as normal and not so bad. He delights in taking what God has made “good” and was meant to glorify God and change it, counterfeit it, making it to please Satan himself instead of the Creator God. The fallen one desires men to see themselves as gods, having to answer to no one but themselves. […] It’s not a matter of acceptance; it’s a matter of an evil agenda which is being pushed upon America and around the world. Satan continues to attack God’s design and skew it to his own workings.  He continues to take words like “wholesome” and “family” and twist them for his own purposes. He takes a symbol of God’s promise (the rainbow) and hijacks it, twisting it to his own design. Satan calls it normal; God calls it sin. We live in a day when “evil” is called “good” and “good” is called “evil.” That which is meant to glorify God (family, the church, etc) is being taken and bent out of shape until it is hardly recognizable.[…]So-Called “American Decency Association”

I find this statement extremely interesting. I can see Evangelists claiming to speak for God, because that’s what they do. But now we have an Evangelical organization claiming to speak for Satan. Which got me to wondering; Does the ADA  have regular board meetings where the Fallen One gets to explain his policy positions? Is it a more informal arrangement where Satan’s representatives join ADA members at a local Starbucks  and just chat about stuff? Or could it just be that the ADA receives periodic press releases from Hell?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Meanwhile, Honey Maid decided to defend itself by releasing a new ad. Once again, I post the ad here for viewing by my many loyal readers.

My personal opinion is that Honey Maid has just produced one of the most beautiful messages in a commercial format I’ve ever seen. Now if you’all will excuse me, I need to go to the grocery store. I have graham crackers on my shopping list.