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EL ESPECTADOR

Colombian Ad Campaign With Gay Couple Sparks Uproar

Bancolombia advertisement featuring a gay couple
Bancolombia advertisement featuring a gay couple
Stefany Castaño Muñoz

BOGOTÁ –– Bancolombia, one of Colombia's big banks, portrayed a gay couple as its customers in a recent advertisement. While some have welcomed it as a bold and inclusive move, others weren't as pleased.

Representatives at Bancolombia say they're sure they made the right decision.

The advertisement depicts two men and their pet dog, and is one of seven prominent images in the bank's marketing campaign, which goes by the tagline "This is Everyone's Moment" (Es el Momento de Todos).

The photo sparked a debate on social media. Some customers even threatened to pull out their cash, arguing that a national institution was misrepresenting families.

Inclusion should be seen as normal.

The bank's response? "We understand and respect the sexual, racial and religious differences of Colombians. We just want to show a bit more reality."

The local head of the advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, Mauricio Barrriga, says Bancolombia's campaign wasn't clear in its communication, and that it was better suited for "a person, a politician, a foundation, anything but a bank." But a national LGBT trade chamber welcomed the advertisement. The group's president, Felipe Cárdenas, says the campaign is an inclusive one.

Ogilvy's Barriga argues that financial services have nothing to do with inclusion. "Inclusion should be seen as normal," he says, adding that showing pictures like this "does not make this the most modern bank."

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

How Biden's Mideast Stance Weakens Israel And Emboldens Iran

The West's decision to pressure Israel over Gaza, and indulge Iran's violent and troublesome regime, follows the U.S. Democrats' line with the Middle East: just keep us out of your murderous affairs.

Photo of demonstration against U.S President Joe Biden in Iran

Demonstration against U.S President Joe Biden in Iran.

Bahram Farrokhi

-OpEd-

The Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weak both structurally and for its dismal popularity level, which has made it take some contradictory, or erratic, decisions in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

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Other factors influencing its decisions include the pressures of the families of Hamas hostages, and the U.S. administration's lukewarm support for this government and entirely reactive response to the military provocations and "hit-and-run" incidents orchestrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies, which include Hamas. Israel has also failed to mobilize international opinion behind its war on regional terrorism, in what might be termed a full-blown public relations disaster.

The administration led by President Joe Biden has, by repeating the Democrats' favored, and some might say feeble, policy of appeasing Iran's revolutionary regime, duly nullified the effects of Western sanctions imposed on that regime. By delisting its proxies, the Houthis of Yemen, as terrorists, the administration has allowed them to devote their energies to firing drones and missiles across the Red Sea and even indulging in piracy. The general picture is of a moment of pitiful weakness for the West, in which Iran and other members of the Axis - of Evil or Resistance, take your pick - are daily cocking a snook at the Western powers.

You wonder: how could the United States, given its military and technological resources, fail to spot tankers smuggling out banned Iranian oil through the Persian Gulf to finance the regime's foreign entanglements, while Iran is able to track Israeli-owned ships as far aways as the Indian Ocean? The answer, rather simply, lies in the Biden administration's decision to indulge the ayatollahs and hope for the best.

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