Kellogg’s under fire for using Tony the Tiger in pride ads
Cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s has been condemned by anti-gay groups for putting Frosties mascot Tony the Tiger on a pride advert.
According to the American Family Association, the company sponsored the recent Atlanta Pride march – and took out a prominent ad featuring the iconic Tiger in the event’s Pride Guide.
It reads: “At Kellogg, we’re an evolving culture that respects and accepts employees’ sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression so that all employees can be authentic and fully engaged.”
Some commenters on the AFA’s Facebook have called for a boycott over the ad, with one saying: “the only way to hit these companies is where their hearts are- greed!!! money we must band together and stop giving them our money!!!”
Another added: “Why use a cartoon tiger? Camel got heat for ‘marketing cigarettes to children’ because of their cartoon camel. Is it just me, or is Tony now marketing a sexual lifestyle to children?
“I don’t care if that tiger, or any of Kellogs’ employees are gay or straight or short or tall or black or white. I really don’t care. But their use of a cartoon tiger to MARKET a sexual lifestyle to children is atrocious.”
A third said: “what they’ve done to tony is thoroughly disgusting. they won’t stop until every comic character in the world is a homosexual. criminal is what it is. so sad.”
Ironically, the company’s founder John Harvey Kellogg was an advocate of abstinence, campaigning against masturbation and other forms of “excesses”, and refusing to have sex with his wife.
He presumably would not approve of Tony’s red handkerchief.
