Pasta Tycoon Guido Barilla Sparks Boycott With ‘Anti-Gay’ Comments

Activists are calling for the boycott of Barilla, the world’s largest pasta manufacturing company, after the company’s chairman made anti-gay comments on the radio this week. Reuters reports that speaking on Radio 24 in Italy on Wednesday, 55-year-old Guido Barilla said:

I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don’t agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role.

Barilla went on to say that he does not approve of gay couples adopting children but is in support of gay marriage, which is illegal in Italy.

In defense of his comments Barilla said that he was merely emphasizing that women play a central role in the family. He said that if gays “like our pasta and our advertising, they’ll eat our pasta, if they don’t like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand.”