Just when it seemed that proponents of the Affordable Care Act couldn't sink any lower, they've gone ahead and approved an offensive advertisement trying to get gay men to enroll in healthcare exchanges that has managed to get everyone disgusted.
The ad -- which features muscular men dancing in colorful underwear and Christmas headgear as they tout the benefits of enrollment in insurance exchanges -- was praised by Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey who said he supports “whatever it takes to get people enrolled.”
Participants in the two-minute video produced by the organization known as Out2Enroll sing a parody of the tune “Let It Snow,” which has new lyrics encouraging gays and lesbians to “Get Enrolled":
Hope you’re stuffed from your Thanksgiving,
Now ’tis the season of giving.
‘Fore the doctor brings a lump of coal,
Get enrolled, get enrolled, get enrolled!
And when it’s time for resolutions,
A health insurance solution,
Don’t get left in the cold,
Get enrolled, get enrolled, get enrolled!
When you finally meet Mr. Right,
Never again will you be alone.
You’ll be glad you went to the site.
Together you’re a happy home.
Pre-existing conditions won’t stop ‘em.
New plans are better; can’t top ‘em.
Whether bronze, silver or gold,
Get enrolled, get enrolled, get enrolled!
It didn't take long for leaders of the Log Cabin Republicans -- self-described as the “only LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) advocacy organization on the ObamaCare Repeal Coalition,” to issue a statement on Sunday denouncing the video for “exploiting gay stereotypes.”
“This cynical ad betrays the depths ObamaCare advocates will sink to in order to pad their pathetic enrollment numbers,” executive director Gregory Angelo declared. “As a self-proclaimed ‘fierce advocate’ of gay equality, President Obama would do well to distance himself from this nonsense and denounce it immediately.”
Angelo then noted:
This ad is also an example of the left promoting harmful stereotypes that gay men are nothing more than sex-crazed lechers. If anyone on the right made such a comparison, liberals would be apoplectic.
At a time when left-wing propagandists are decrying Duck Dynasty‘s Phil Robertson for equating homosexuality with promiscuity and deviance, Out2Enroll and others should take a look in the mirror and ask if the truth is that they are the ones responsible for promoting such harmful stereotypes.
Then on Monday morning, MSNBC Live anchor Craig Melvin played a clip of the controversial video and asked for Pallone's response to it.
“At this point, whether it’s an ad, whether it’s, you know, TV ads, or newspaper ads, or people going door to door, I just want people to sign up because the more people that sign up, the larger the insurance pool, and the more likely it is that the insurance becomes affordable,” he noted.
“So I'm not going to prejudge what types of ads are being promoted,” Pallone added. “The main thing is to get people signed up.”
As NewsBusters has previously reported, this is far from the first time that advocates of ObamaCare have crossed the line between good and bad taste.
The first instance took place in Colorado during the month of October, when an ad targeting young men promoted “brosurance” because “Keg stands are crazy. Not having health insurance is crazier. Don't tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. We got it covered. Now you can, too! Thanks, ObamaCare!”
Just one month later, an ad focused on young women was hammered for portraying them as "cheap sluts who don’t care about their health or well-being other than getting cheap birth control pills to have sex with strange men.”
And in December, ACA proponents released a display ad containing a photo of a grown man in children's pajamas holding a cup of hot chocolate. The text on the ad stated: "Wear pajamas. Drink hot chocolate. Talk about getting health insurance." Ethan Krupp soon became known as “PajamaBoy".
Before long, Krupp became the target of jokes from both sides of the political aisle. While some people considered him an “emblem” of people who are not white, others declared him “one of the whitest people on the planet.”
Who knows what kind of misfire the next promotion of ObamaCare will contain? It's impossible to guess, so check back on this site regularly for coverage of the ACA defenders' latest stumble. One thing is for certain: You won't hear much about such ridiculous ads in the self-proclaimed mainstream media.
