COCA-COLA'S SUPER BOWL AD TURNS AMERICA'S SONG INTO A LEFTIST DIVERSITY AD By Geoffrey G. Fisher The liberal left’s love affair with the term diversity reached new heights on Super Bowl Sunday when “America the Beautiful” was sung in eight languages by young girls as part of a Coca-Cola Ad. The reaction from conservatives was predictable and immediate. “How dare this corporation take an American icon like “America the Beautiful” and toss it into the cauldron of political correctness.” In short, it was a cheap shot. The hubris of this Atlanta behemoth in general and CEO Muhtar Kent in particular was galling and chilling at the same time. It took less than one day for liberal researches to track down the intimate history of the author of the lyrics, Wellesley College graduate and Professor Katherine Lee Bates. Miss Bates had what was called at the time a “Boston Marriage” – that is a long term friendship with fellow Wellesley Professor Katharine Coman. Beyond these few facts historians are guessing at the particulars of their living arrangements because women expressed friendships in ambiguous terms in the late Victorian era. Author Patricia A. Palmieri an expert of Boston Marriages writes: “"We cannot say with certainty what sexual connotations these relationships conveyed. We do know that these relationships were deeply intellectual; they fostered verbal and physical expressions of love." This has not stopped the radical lesbian community from taking the most reckless interpretation for their cause and naming Miss Bates a lesbian icon as seen in 2012 when she was listed as one of the 31 LGBT history "icons" by the organizers of LGBT History Month. What the homosexual community ignores is the period sensitivity to any suggestion that a woman of that era was sexually attracted to the same gender. American author Henry James coined the term Boston Marriage and wrote the period novel The Bostonians on this very topic. The heroine of the book Verena Tarrant, is the love interest of Mississippi lawyer and Civil War veteran, Basil Ransom and Olive Chancellor, an ardent feminist reformer from Boston. Contemporary reaction to The Bostonians was both swift and unambiguous - the liberal reformers of Boston were scandelized. Darrel Abel put it perfectly in his book from 2002 called Classic Authors of the Gilded Age: “But probably most offensive to Boston propriety were the unmistakable indications (veiled references) of Lesbianism in the portrait of Olive Chancellor, which made it a violation of Boston decency and reticence. The important point about Miss Bates is that her lyrics are of unity, an assumption that American is a country of believers in God and one that understood that brotherhood stood for all of us. America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! Professor Bates would have tolerated but not approved of her lyrics being sung in eight languages. Indeed, as a full professor of English literature she would have insisted that all immigrants learn Standard English in a public school. The problem with the big topic of Diversity is that it’s foreign (excuse the pun) to our collective DNA. Diversity gurus view the United States as a simple collection of many parts, a view that contributes to chronic alienation of recent immigrants from the American experience, from the American ethos. It denies new arrivals that sense of joining a dynamic culture that is of the new world and not the old world of Europe or Asia. Artificial Diversity brings divisiveness. Most liberals ironically refuse to embrace diversity of opinion – if you disagree with them you are a “homophobe” or stupid et cetera. Listen to the words of Presidential candidate Barack Obama speaking in 2008 at a fund raiser in San Francisco, the citadel of liberalism. The junior senator from Illinois tried to explain small town Americans to his fellow progressives: “…they (rural Americans) cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Really? Basically if you disagree with a “liberal” you are marginalized as a gun-toting, bible thumping, xenophobe. Mr. President that sounds very provincial of you. John F. Kennedy promoted unity and togetherness in his last commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. on June 10, 1963: “So, let us not be blind to our differences. But let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” This was and is still great advice for the countries of the world he was addressing in 1963 and the young people of the United States today - Gen Y. Remember we live in the United States and not the United Nations. There’s a reason “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many, One) is one of our national mottos, that it is on our money and the Great Seal of the United States since 1782, and that is because we are many people who have created the greatest country in history and have created a culture worthy of this great country. Having English as our common language makes us stronger not weaker Mr. Kent. The greatest story of E Pluribus Unum or assimilation of the 20 century was the European Jews who escaped persecution in the Old Country only to live in abject poverty in cities like New York, Brooklyn, and New Orleans. They did this in order to give their children a better life. And of course the degradation suffered by the Jews of the 20th century during World War II cannot be matched by any racial or ethnic group in American society today. Yet in 2014 Jews enjoy the full embrace of America contributing to the fields of music, medicine, business, and politics. Think about it – can you get any more American than George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris or Irving Berlin (White Christmas, God Bless America, and Blue Skies). Today Diversity is nothing more than a continuation of Pluralism of the 1980s and Multiculturalism of the 1990s. Diversity is the love child of modern liberals like Barack and Hillary who have reservations about American Exceptionalism. Evangelicals argue that the founding generation of America was put together with the guiding hand of Almighty God. I agree. How else can you explain Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Franklin being contemporaries in 1776? Just take Thomas Jefferson. His brilliance was best explained by John Kennedy at a dinner honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere on Sunday April 29, 1962: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” The bottom line is there is nothing wrong with speaking several languages as an individual as long as you can speak Standard English. Muhtar Kent’s affront to American sensibilities harkens back to Coke’s former CEO Roberto Goizueta’s introduction of New Coke on April 23, 1985 – an introduction that proved to be one of the great marketing blunders in business history because he misread the American people. My advice to Muhtar Kent, stick to your business ledgers and leave the political correct propaganda to true socialists like the president, Mrs. Pelosi, and Mrs. Clinton. (Word Total: 1258)