Friday was the deadline for individuals and organizations to submit amicus briefs to the Supreme Court adding to the arguments for marriage equality. Ellen DeGeneres took to her blog to write a brief of her own, hoping that someone will tweet it to the Court on her behalf. Speaking of her marriage to Portia de Rossi, DeGeneres explained that for as happy as she is, they’re still not equal in society:

Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life. And in those 4 years, I don’t think we hurt anyone else’s marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they’re fine.

But even though Portia and I got married in the short period of time when it was legal in California, there are 1,138 federal rights for married couples that we don’t have, including some that protect married people from losing their homes, or their savings or custody of their children.

The truth is, Portia and I aren’t as different from you as you might think. We’re just trying to find happiness in the bodies and minds we were given, like everyone else. [...]

I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights. It’s going to help keep families together. It’s going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time.

Here is the monologue DeGeneres shared on her show shortly after her wedding, in which she described the special day:

Actor/director Clint Eastwood, whose controversial “surprise” Republican National Convention conversation with an empty stool ranked as the convention’s highlight for a plurality of viewers, reiterated his support for marriage equality Monday. On Ellen, he told host Ellen DeGeneres that he does not share Mitt Romney’s anti-LGBT views:

DeGENERES: I like — you have, your stance on gay marriage is you don’t have any problem with that, which I greatly…
EASTWOOD: It’s part of the libertarian idea: leave everybody alone.

Eastwood notes that in the face of the struggling economy, there is “a lot to think about” more important than worrying about whether same-sex couples are marrying.

Watch the video:

Eastwood has previously expressed this inclusive view. He told GQ magazine in 2011, “I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of…Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want.”

His favored candidate, Romney, however takes a starkly opposite view on the subject and has signed a pledge promising to support a federal marriage inequality constitutional amendment. The Republican party’s platform, adopted at the same convention, includes an anti-LGBT plank, stating “we believe that marriage, the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the national standard, a goal to stand for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage.”

Though an individual can choose to boycott a product, a boycott is, by definition, only effective if organized on a large scale. ABC News chose to ignore this distinction when it reported yesterday, “Oreo Pride: Rainbow-Stuffed Cookie Sparks Boycott.” The article highlighted the rainbow Oreo posted on Facebook this week, which was accompanied by the message, “Proudly support love!” Though the innocuously inclusive message has largely been praised, ABC News drew its conclusions solely from some negative comments posted on Facebook:

But while many of the comments were supportive, some Facebook users pledged to boycott the cookie because of the post.

“I’ll never buy Oreo again,” one commenter wrote.

“Disgusted with oreos,” wrote another. “Being gay is an abmonitation in GOd’s eyes i wont be buying them anymore.”

If such journalistic conclusions could be drawn from random typo-ridden comments on Internet content, news headlines would instantly lose all integrity. Two Facebook comments do not constitute a boycott, nor would 100 anti-gay comments even warrant calling the posting “controversial.” Culture wars have never merely been about a “difference of opinion.” Controversy is manufactured by such headlines that over-emphasize negative voices and draw false conclusions about their impact.

There are, of course, anti-gay boycotts, but none have been successful. The one-man operation known as the Florida Family Association has generated faux outrage about almost every LGBT-inclusive television program. The American Family Association has been boycotting Home Depot for its support of gay rights for years to no avail. Its subsidiary, One Million Moms, has whiningly railed against JC Penney for featuring Ellen DeGeneres and same-sex couples in advertisements. The National Organization for Marriage has been unsuccessfully “dumping” Starbucks and now General Mills. (Only a few dozen people showed up to protest General Mills yesterday, and the company actually boosted its dividends — thank General Mills here.) If NOM wants to retaliate against Oreos, it’ll have to add all of Kraft foods to its boycott, which would leave conservative kitchens with relatively empty pantries. To truly eschew all pro-LGBT companies, they’d also have to add Google, Microsoft, Nike, Time Warner Cable, Levi Strauss, CBS, and Xerox to their list, to name a few.

Businesses have realized that supporting equality and inclusion is good for their employees, good for their customers, and good for their bottom line, so it’s no surprise that pro-LGBT policies are quickly becoming ubiquitous throughout the corporate world. To try to upset this reality by highlighting a few negative reactions is not only irresponsible, it’s simply incorrect.

Openly lesbian Michigan high school student Katy Butler has collected close to 300,000 signatures on her Change.org petition challenging the MPAA’s “R” rating for the new documentary Bully. She now has the support of Ellen DeGeneres, who discussed the controversy on her show last week. In an interview with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts today, Butler articulated how important it is that young people have the opportunity to see Bully, because the offensive language heard in the film is what bullies use in school every day:

BUTLER: I think we can definitely win. I think taking out the language in this movie is just taking away from the message. I mean, the message is so strong, and the language in this movie is the language that kids hear every day and the language that kids are bullied with. If we go in and take it out, it’s definitely taking away from that. No one goes into schools and edits out the language that kids hear in schools. It just doesn’t happen.

Watch it: