VIDEO: The 5 Most Comically Bad Anti-Gay Ads, Ever

There are political ads that attack candidates. There are ads that attack candidates’ policies. There are even ads that attack candidates’ health problems. But beneath that subterranean level is another class of ads: those that throw lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters under the bus. And regardless of how you feel about gay marriage, these kinds of ads hit rock bottom for an entirely different reason. They flunk acting, screenwriting, stage direction, and costume design 101. Here are five of the worst offenders:

1. “That’s Not the Change I Voted For”

          

Sponsor: Campaign for American Values PAC (2012)

The Fail: The ominous jars of animal crackers, the old-timey “I just lost my job in a Lucille Ball comedy” music, the furrowed brows, the mysteriously awkward sentence cadences, and the completely false premise that these people actually voted for President Obama in 2008. 

2. “I’m Confused”

          

Sponsor: National Organization for Marriage (2009)

The Fail: Using small children to spout political views, excess blush, the fact that something or someone (the director?) has managed to inspire real, tangible terror in the smallest children, and saying “Our kids will be taught a new way of thinking!” like it’s a bad thing.

3. “Boys Beware”

          

Sponsor: The Inglewood, California, Police Department and School District (1961) 

The Fail: Comparing homosexuality to smallpox, equating it with pedophilia, general fear-mongering, creepy facial hair, and the fact that our main character (Jimmy) vanishes at the end of the film, never to be seen or heard from again. 

4. “War on Religion”

          

Sponsor: Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) (2011)

The Fail: Since when can’t kids openly celebrate Christmas? And what does this have to do with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Also, someone has to say it: The rough-and-ready governor’s Carhartt-style wardrobe is straight off the set of Brokeback Mountain.

5. “A Storm is Coming”

          

Sponsor: National Organization for Marriage (2009) 

Fail: What NOM had in quantity, it lacked in quality: special effects stolen from a Final Cut Pro tutorial, people photoshopped in front of said special effects, costumes from the J. Crew bargain bin, fake-sounding foreign accents, and a complete and total inversion of logic. Oh, and spiky-hair lady: How does gay marriage affect the way you live, anyway?

On the plus side, though, that NOM effort led to this great Futurama spoof ad:

6. BONUS: “Vote NO on robosexual marriage”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate