I can remember when the slogan for AMTRAK was “there’s nothing like a train”. How far we have come since those days of innocence in marketing a train, a form of travel and what constitutes “a family”.
That was when AMTRAK was marketing itself as a more relaxing, less hurried way to travel across the USA and in particular a way for families to share a once in a lifetime experience as they glide upon silver rails across the heartland, through mountains and see things which can’t be seen by driving or flying overhead by plane.
So it is that AMTRAK has started its latest marketing campaign this time geared towards same-sex parents and their children.
The campaign called “Ride With Pride” offers a discount for kids within an age range which is nothing new but what is new are the ads, one displaying two men with the other showing two women and both with a young child with the ad copy touting a discount for kids traveling with parents.
Already talking heads on some cable news shows are trying to stir the pot of controversy to see if Conservative and Republican talking heads would “bite” and complain that this marketing campaign was being done using taxpayers’ dollars as AMTRAK is subsidized by the government, and being seen as a governmental push for the “homosexual agenda”.
No doubt there will be those who will be outraged by the campaign as they see it as the “evil homosexual” has now infiltrated one of the bastions of America Heritage, travel by rail, and will foresee gay men and lesbian women having sex in the hallways of sleeper cars, in the vestibules between rail cars and putting on a sexual show with the shade up in their sleeper car room as the train rolls through stations or across street rail crossings.
They won’t read the print in the ad which promotes discounted travel for kids, but only see two men or women sitting together with their child who will no doubt be indoctrinated into the “homosexual lifestyle”.
If Republicans and/or Conservatives are smart they will see this for what it is, an advertising campaign to expand the coffers of AMTRAK and get new customers, thus not make a big deal about it. But then we know how smart some Republicans and/or Conservatives can be … or not.
They as a collective have bigger fish to fry, more issues to bring up to put an end to President Obama and get Mitt Romney elected to the Oval Office. They are well to keep their lips zipped on this one.
When AMTRAK offers sex orgies for gay men aboard trains as cruise lines are often seen when promoting their “all gay” cruises then that will be the time to be outraged.
Until that happens in the end “Ride With Pride” is a marketing campaign and not a social statement.
