While checking out the online version of CBS News for Logo (the LGBTQ MTV-owned cable channel for anyone who’s had his head in a hole), I saw an IBM commercial that blew me away. First of all, that CBS produces the gay news for cable is a fact that most Americans don’t realize. That’s because only people who pay to have the Logo channel know. If you go onto the cbsnews.com website and type in “Logo,” you’ll get two stories that use the word logo in its noun form, but nothing about its affiliation with Logo the cable channel. Hmmm, curious.

Anyway, back to IBM. So IBM has this commercial that they air on Logo online (presumably on the cable channel too, though I no longer pay for cable), that has people of multifarious races, colors, creeds, backgrounds, sexual orientations, etceteras. In a montage that made me choke up a little, they each read a few words from “Policy Letter Number Four,” an equal opportunity employment letter written in 1953 by the T.J. Watson Jr., the CEO of IBM in the 1950’s. Each person then says, “I’m Native American,” “I’m a lesbian,” (and so forth), and “I’ve been working for the IBM Corporation for 18 years.” The violins play, the people look off to the side with a slight smile, and IBM is the United Nations and Gay & Lesbian Task Force all rolled into one big fairytale mega-corporation. Sigh.

There’s an online still-image ad for an IBM website devoted to learning about “IBM’s Human Capital Management Consulting,” whatever that means. The site, has a header “Opening doors to the GLBT business community,” a link to the Human Rights Campaign, and a series of links to docs showing how gay friendly IBM is with specially tailored gay PDFs . “Imagine what could happen if companies’ doors were open to everyone,” the site says. Who knew IBM was so gay? I guess the Advocate did in their 2003 piece Big Blue Wants You, but I had no idea. But wait, if I had no idea, and only saw the ads on the Logo website, maybe no one in straight America has any idea. Wait, that’s brilliant! Pander to minority groups without alienating the Christian Right. Sounds kind of like politics. But unlike CBS, IBM at least keeps their affiliations with GLBT groups on their website.