A fellow who didn't say I could use his name wrote to say…
I respect you, that's why I find this latest post disturbing. As I understand it this man's only 'crime' is: Saying while he has no problem with gays he does not and would not use them in advertisements for his product. For this he and his company should be ostracized? If so then Big Brother and 1984 are really here. No way can a person speak their mind from now on they must be 'correct'. Shame on you for being a party to it.
That's a silly analogy. Big Brother and 1984 were all about government control of speech. Me deciding I don't want to purchase a certain company's product is in no way comparable to that.
You know, the "free speech" part of the First Amendment of this country makes clear that the government cannot stop anyone from saying whatever they want. Okay, whatever they want as long as it isn't "Fire!" in the proverbial crowded theater. It doesn't say you have the right to say what you want without fear of consequence. If an entertainer gets up on stage and utters racial slurs, we have the right to not go see him. Or if a used car salesman gets up and says the Holocaust never happened, we have the right to not spend our money on his lot. Isn't there something a businessperson might say that would offend you and cause you to take your business elsewhere?
Mr. Barilla is, as I understand it, an Italian citizen…but the principle is the same. He can say what he wants — and what he said was a little worse than your laundered paraphrase. Then once he's said what he wants to say, my Free Speech allows me to say, "Gee, I don't think I want to buy Barilla pasta anymore." It's just like how if a candidate for public office says things you don't like, you have the right to not vote for that person. An exercise of small-D democracy.
If the government were banning the import and sale of Barilla Rigatoni, yeah, that might raise to an Orwellian level. But there is no way on this planet that I can stop Guido Barilla from saying whatever he wants to say. The most damage I can do to him is to deny his company some microscopic fragment of a penny of profit they might make from me. And he might not even suffer that because there are probably people out there who right this minute are buying Barilla products, the way they've lined up for photo ops at Chick-Fil-A, to show their support for anti-gay sentiments.