I see that Ben and Jerry's ice cream have decided to celebrate Vermont's decision to allow same sex marriage in a most entertaining way: releasing some promotional 'Chubby Hubby' ice cream renamed 'Hubby Hubby.' Their chief executive calls the law 'certainly a step in the right direction and something worth celebrating with peace, love and plenty of ice cream'.

I think this calls for some Ben and Jerry's, don't you?

And before anyone says 'It's just a publicity stunt to promote their sales, so no' - well, of course it's a publicity stunt. One that might well lose them some red-state customers, in fact. But even if it is a publicity stunt, this is a good thing. They've chosen to link their stunts to human rights: they didn't have to do that, and if they wanted gay people to remain second-class citizens they wouldn't have; they could have released 'Hetero Hubby' instead.

More than that, a popular brand of ice cream is normal, mainstream, cosy. Those are exactly the things gay-bashers think gay people aren't. If the company wants to throw its mainstream weight behind supporting gay rights, that's great and I don't begrudge them extra sales. Sales are the capitalist equivalent of votes. If a company gets a sales spike by supporting civil rights, other companies will follow suit. It will become in institutions' interests to support civil rights, and that's a real motivator: that will mean money and publicity behind good causes, which will increase their chances of success.

Let's keep writing to our representatives and supporting activism - Protect Maine Equality / Alan Turing petition /write to your MP reminders inserted here - but I think we deserve to vote with our spoons from time to time as well.