Lucky Charms Comes Out

If you're an LGBT person, or just a supporter who's also fond of a sugary cereal every now and again, today is a happy day: Lucky Charms is celebrating Gay Pride Month for the second straight year, and indeed, a celebration it is. They've dubbed it the #LuckyToBe campaign, the same as in 2013 — of course, no advertising effort is worth its salt these days absent a hashtag — and in a meaningful sense, you aren't likely to see many mixtures of corporate advertising and Gay Pride advocacy that are more striking. Lucky Charms is owned by General Mills, the same company that produces Cocoa Puffs, Cheerios, and Wheaties, among many others.

June is Gay Pride Month, labeled such to memorialize the Stonewall riots of 1969, a spontaneous clash between gay citizens of New York City's Greenwich Village and the NYPD that is regarded as a landmark moment for the gay rights movement in American history.

This year's Lucky Charms campaign is no less reverential and joyous about how "we don't all love the same people" than last year's, but it does strike an especially sweet note alongside the march of pro-marriage equality court rulings across the country. In short, when companies start embracing a civil rights campaign as a means to try to sell cereal, you know that campaign has gone mainstream, and it's winning.

This isn't the first time General Mills has stepped forward on gay rights. Back in 2012, it announced its opposition to a proposed same-sex marriage ban in Minnesota, spurring protests outside their headquarters. The company was also swarmed with racist vitriol after the airing of a 2013 Super Bowl Cheerios ad featuring a biracial family. Because, of course, breakfast cereal is firmly "racists only."

Thankfully, though, if two years of unapologetic support for Gay Pride Month serves as any indication, they don't much care about such retrograde attacks. Which isn't just good for LGBT people, it's good for all of us.

Images: General Mills/YouTube