Does it not ring as disingenuous that somehow forming a *committee* with a pleasant, inclusive sounding name doesn't make the people who profit from this company any less hateful douchebags? Isn't this just straight-up, PR-driven pink washing?

@1 - Always relevant

@1

Punishing people for the sins in their heart is a hangup of Christian morality. Does anybody really give a shit about the private thoughts of the guys making your toothpaste or pasta or snow tires?

The disupte here is entirely over what our social norms are. Marginalizing gay people is -- in 2013 -- like farting in an elevator. If that's how you're going to behave, don't expect the public to like your brand. Want a popular brand? Behave yourself with a minimum of civility.

It's good pasta, do ladies still wear collared shirts to harvest grain in Southern Italy?

So is DeCecco (or any other brand) demonstrably "non-homophoic" or just not vocally homophobic? Because I think that matters if you're going to tout one thing as an alternative to the boycotted brand. Not saying I know either way since I haven't looked into it extensively, but a quick google of "dececco pasta gay" basically just pulls up all the "boycott barilla" pages - nothing about DeCecco being supportive of LGBT causes or rights.

When I buy some random thing in the supermarket, say, shaving soap, I'd rather not think about the politics of the CEO of the company that made it. But when Mr. Barilla makes a public statement laying out the social values his company stands for -- in particular saying "we" and not "I" -- and then adding "if the gays do not agree, they can always eat pasta from another manufacturer", he makes it impossible for me NOT to boycott his company.

Boycotts do work. Skip Enders Game.

I'm not sure it's the effect of a formal, organized, declared boycott so much as a lot of consumers having formed an opinion that Barilla has established for itself the corporate identity of "asshole", and they don't need to buy "asshole" pasta. It's even possible there was no sales effect at all, but the executives are sick of everyone they meet asking them about their corporate identity of "asshole".

In a sense, Barilla might prefer an organized boycott: one of those might be called off through negotiation with acknowledged leaders of the boycotting community. In this case, it will be difficult for Barilla to do decent things noisily enough to inspire trust in a lot of people, even as they so easily inspired revulsion in a lot of people.

stumbling through my local Metropolitan (doing my worst "The Dude" impression) recently and i noticed all the barilla™ products with significant (special sale) mark-downs and not moving. So... yep, "boycotts do work", (at least in furiously aware Seattle)

As someone (native Italian) once said to me, it's the mixture of things that makes a good minestrone.

@ 5, not being demostrably homophobic is to be taken as pro-LGBT until they do something to show that they aren't.

@6: Pretty much.

It's going to be tough for Barilla to put that cat back into the bag. Their customers tried other brands and found that there wasn't a demonstrable difference between them, so poof! the Barilla "magic" is gone....

@5 Why should you expect De Cecco to be actively supporting gay rights? It's a brand of pasta, for god's sake, and it doesn't run television ads where it could discriminate and be asshole-ish.

The important thing is that Barilla is demonstrably anti-gay, and it isn't even a good brand! De Cecco or anything produced in Gragnano (Liguori, Garofalo, ecc.) are the way to go.

Awesome. When Barilla starts putting their money where their mouth is though, I'll start buying them again.

I made this exact choice in the market yesterday. Barilla was on sale. I myself bought a box of De Cecco and a box of Ronzoni.