As controversies go, the Snickers Superbowl flap was short and trivial. A formulaic "men are hairy numbskulls" commercial for a candy bar ignited unexpected complaints from gay activists and advocate groups, resulting in the commercial being pulled almost immediately. But the episode deserves more attention than its details would suggest, because it serves as a revealing example of a common unethical practice in the culture wars. There was, you see, nothing wrong with the commercial, and the justification for gay indignation was imaginary. But a politically astute advocacy group realized that Snickers was a perfect target for a mugging, not to assert a principle, but to assert and consolidate political power at the expense of, for once, an innocent corporation. And that is unethical.

The commercial depicted two auto mechanics who manage to attempt to eat the same Snickers bar from opposite ends and end up in the middle with the candy consumed and their lips locked in an unintended kiss. They recoil in horror, and then each begins ripping out handfuls of his chest hair to erase any lingering suspicion of non-heterosexual masculinity, screaming in pain as they do. Focus groups among Superbowl viewers rated the spot as one of the best of this year's ad orgy, but within hours gay groups and the blogosphere were in full attack mode, claiming that the ad was "homophobic."

"That Snickers, Mars, and the NFL would promote and endorse this kind of prejudice is simply inexcusable," said Neil Giuliano, president of the usually rational Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Judy Shepard, the mother of slain Wyoming gay college student Matthew Shepard and executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, announced, "I am outraged that Mars, the NFL, and these players would promote such an anti-gay message. This campaign encourages the same type of hate that led to the death of my son Matthew. It essentially gives 'permission' to our society to verbally or physically harass individuals who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual."

The intensity of the objections was magnified by additional versions of the ad on the Snickers web site. One of them depicted the two men engaging in a violent, if cartoonish, battle to prove their lip-lock was no kiss. The site also featured NFL players watching the ad and reacting with revulsion to the sight of the two mechanics in oscular contact. But no objective…indeed, no sighted…viewer could watch any of the versions of the commercial and fairly conclude that the commercial "promoted" or "endorsed" any prejudice toward gays at all. The ad was obvious satire, and the characters stereotypical straight blue collar cretins. Indeed, it is heterosexual men and auto mechanics who would have had grounds to complain, had their sense of humor been surgically removed. The ad clearly and unambiguously ridicules an irrational fear of gay relationships. It bears no other interpretation.

Even in the violent fight version of the ad, the straight men attack each other as an idiotic display of macho insecurity. There are no gays in the commercial, nor does either man believe the other is gay. The ad makes fun of two hetero guys who would rather hurt themselves than accept the fact that their lips touched. The substance of this message was the same, only funnier, as the message of the much-praised transgender film "The Crying Game" ("It's just a little piece of flesh!"). At heart, the underlying Snickers gag is no different than the running joke in the famous Seinfeld episode when Jerry and George desperately try to prove that a college newspaper story depicting them as a gay couple is false. If the Snickers commercial is homophobic, then the movie "Blazing Saddles" is racist because it ridicules ignorant and stupid racists. But "Blazing Saddles" is anti-racist satire, just as the Snickers commercial was anti-homophobia satire.

"How far does something have to go before it's okay to call it out as anti-gay?" asked one blog, rhetorically. Oh, I don't know…how about far enough to actually be anti-gay? But it didn't matter: gay advocates smelled blood in the water, a chance to say, "Don't mess with us; WE'LL make the anti-homophobia jokes!" Snickers and its manufacturer Mars Inc. were no-risk targets, you see. Any consumer products company is going to cave in to pressure, regardless of the legitimacy of a public attack or lack of it, if it will curtail negative publicity.

"We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive," the company stated as it pulled the commercial and took down the website. "Clearly, that was not our intent." Victory! Now the ad is down, creating a presumption that there was something wrong with it. Those who haven't seen the ad now can't, and only know about it from the misleading characterizations of crowing gay advocates and the lazy, politically correct head-nodding and tsk-tsk-ing of the mainstream media. An annoying example of this was Today's Meredith Viera, who solemnly admitted that she found the ad amusing at first, but was enlightened by her 13 year-old son's observation that "It's always funny when it's not about you." Good point kid…so why weren't gays laughing? The ad wasn't about them, it was about homophobic clods. "You know…" as Gene Wilder's "Waco Kid" explains to Cleavon Little's black sheriff in "Blazing Saddles,"

"Morons!"

There is an equally apt one-word description for the gay groups who unfairly attacked the Snickers ad. The word is bullies. For bullying is what this was, the unprovoked use of power just to prove you have it, to frighten others into giving you "respect." The gay groups wouldn't dare mount similar attacks against, for example, the hit Broadway musical "The Producers," which employs satire that is genuinely offensive in its treatment of gays. The attackers would be doomed to failure; they would look petty and foolish, because artists would cry "censorship" and because lots of gays make their living off of that show. They wouldn't dare take on "The Simpsons," TV's longest running comedy ever, which has satirized homophobia dozens of times, notably on the part of its main character, Homer, in an episode that featured John Waters. But a candy company was easy and risk-free. Bullies prey on the weak and defenseless.

Besides, this company was one of the "bad guys," so, the rationalization goes, it doesn't deserve to be treated fairly. A post on AmericaBlog, one of the ring-leaders of the mugging, noted that "the Mars family, that produced the violently homophobic ads, is one of the top billionaire Republican activist families in the country." The poster then went on to outline the process by which the company would be bent to gay America's will:

I give it one hour before the major gay groups weigh in and accuse Snickers of promoting violence against gay men and lesbians…Then it will probably be the end of the afternoon, or maybe tomorrow, when members of Congress start writing letters to the head of Snickers, demanding he address the company's call to violence. If you're in a Hill office, please consider doing this - and feel free to contact me for more information. I'd recommend a press release and a letter to the Mars president…By the end of today, but more likely tomorrow, we'll start seeing articles in the press about Snickers associating its brand with violence against gays…And the Mars boycott will probably be called for by some independent activist by tomorrow, I think. And once that happens, it's out of our hands because there isn't much of anything Mars can do to negotiate with independent actors who will smear the company, permanently, online (remember folks, once something hits the Internet, it's in Google forever)…I've called the head of corporate public relations for Mars and am waiting to hear back. I've also talked with the lead press guy for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay civil rights group in the country, and they're not very happy, to put it lightly…As the guy who launched the first-ever successful boycott of a TV show (StopDrLaura.com), I'm going to suggest to Mars that they had better nip this in the bud quickly, or they're not going to know what hit them.  

He was right on the money, though it was over even faster than he predicted.

The candy company made a good commercial with a positive message about gays, and gay activists punished it anyway. Is any satire involving gays now wrong? Is it gay-bashing to bash gay-bashers, or to show gay-bashers bashing each other to prove they aren't gay? In the wake of the Snickers mugging, it iss hard to know, and that's just the way the gay critics want it. "We'll tell you what's funny!" the bullies have declared. "We'll let you know when to laugh."

You would think that a group whose members have been so victimized by bullies would take care not to emulate them, but human experience teaches otherwise. And you would think that a much victimized group would understand that humor is one of its best and most effective weapons against intolerance. Ridicule is an effective weapon against bigots, and the Snickers episode has diminished the arsenal.

One silly commercial doesn't matter, but the principles at stake do. The attack on the Snickers commercial was unfair, unprovoked and unethical, and the gay advocacy groups and blogs abused their power of indignation and protest. Bullying is wrong, no matter who does it. And the best way to stop bullies is to stand up to them.

I don't know about you, but I'm going out to buy a box of Snickers.