I follow the foibles of the American (anti) Family Association, and they have been busy lately. I have received several emails from them telling the latest about the boycott of McDonald’s, who made a donation to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and made a public statement in support of the gay community. And a couple weeks ago, the AFA successfully launched a campaign to get a supposedly “pro gay” Heinz Ketchup ad off the air.

I was ambivalent about these specific incidents. While I am grateful that McDonald’s is making a statement in support of civil rights for the LGBT community, I am not prepared to patronize the business because I think their selling crap to poor people and making a product that is bad for the world. It’s as bad as smoking. That’s not even scratching the surface. There are myriad reasons why I won’t go to McDonald’s, like the unsustainable way they raise their meat…but I digress. Also, the boycott of McDonald’s just reveals the bigotry and ignorance of the AFA and their friends. Do they really believe that buying a Happy Meal will harm the institution of marriage? Yup, they do. It’s really laughable. I don’t need to waste my energy pointing out what’s obviously funny and ridiculous about that. It speaks for itself.

And I saw the Heinz ad, and it’s just weird. I didn’t find it particularly pro gay. If anything, I thought it was making fun of gay relationships in a way I didn’t appreciate. However innocuous it may appear, I think that it revealed a somewhat homophobic attitude by making fun of same-sex relationships. I guess any kind of visibility is better than none, but at this point in history we’re not at a place where we have to take what we can get.

This week, however, they’ve really embarrassed themselves at the AFA, and this also speaks for itself. The AFA’s news service, One News Now, has an auto-replace for the word “gay” — they use instead “homosexual.” With the news release about Tyson Gay’s Olympic trial this week, they reported a story about “Tyson Homosexual” instead.

I laughed so hard I cried.