Two bail bond commercials currently running on San Diego television have raised the ire of some members of the GLBT community, who have complained to the Gay and Lesbian Times and to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) that they appeal to the homophobia of viewers.

One of the ads was created by King Stahlman Bail Bonds. In this commercial, a group of men in a jail cell are shown shouting, “Thank you, King Stahlman!” as they are individually bailed out. Finally, one luckless man is left — presumably having tried some less effective bail bond company. When another person enters the cell, the lone prisoner holds up his hand and says, “Let me guess, King Stahlman?” At this point another hand reaches across to shake or hold his and a brusquely effeminate voice is heard answering, “No, Queen Jeffrey.”

The second commercial in question, from Already Out Bail Bonds, shows a man sitting on a bunk bed in a jail cell. A man on one side of him starts to rub his thigh as a man on the other side blows him a kiss. The spot ends with the prisoner screaming and shaking the bars of his cell in an attempt to get out as the men behind him advance.

After seeing the commercials, longtime community activist Al Best phoned King Stahlman Bail Bonds to complain, speaking with director of marketing and advertising Michael Hardwick.

According to Best, Hardwick told him that the company had run the ads by GLAAD and received the organization’s green light.

“If GLAAD didn’t find it offensive, then we need to shake their shingles a little bit,” said Best.

According to Best, Hardwick noted a commercial by another San Diego-based company, Already Out Bail Bonds. Best said Hardwick told him Already Out’s ad was much more offensive to the gay and lesbian community.

“I thought, an offense is an offense,” recalled Best, “no matter how it’s delivered.… To me, [the King Stahlman commercial] is equally offensive. It means you’re going to get stuck in jail and then you’ll get accosted by ‘the perverts.’”

According to Hardwick, the conversation ended on a happier note.

“I spoke yesterday with [Best].… He called up expressing concern about the commercial and I explained it all to him and told him how we had spoken to GLAAD, how we had also spoken to a couple of other people in the gay and lesbian community that work here in the legal profession … and nobody had a problem with it. People actually thought it was funny.

“The judge agreed with me when he thought it through. We didn’t show the face of the person who said their name was Queen Jeffrey, we didn’t show anything other than the hand coming from the side, and the facial reaction of the guy sitting there who got passed over getting bailed out is not one of being repulsed.

“The last comment [Best] made to me yesterday on the phone was, ‘Mike, I really appreciate what you guys have done for the community. I really appreciate Mr. Stahlman’s integrity.… If anybody says anything to me about these commercials, I’ll be sure that they’re straightened out and they understand who’s who and who’s doing what.’”

However, Best told the Times he still felt the ads were offensive and that he made no such concession to Hardwick.

GLAAD Southwest Regional Media Manager Eddie Gutierrez said they had received several complaints about the spot, which prompted the organization to contact King Stahlman.

Gutierrez said that when they first inquired with Stahlman, the company told GLAAD they had conducted panel groups ahead of time to “make sure that it was sensitive enough to the gay and lesbian community.”

According to Hardwick, the producer of the commercial put together a focus group of nearly 30 people — a cross-section of the community — and no one found the commercial offensive. He also said that King Stahlman had spoken to several members of the GLBT community that they interact with in work situations and that none of them saw a problem with it. He also said three of the actors in the commercial are gay and found the ad humorous.

“We try to do the best we can,” Hardwick stressed. “Our business is not one that just showed up on the scene overnight. Mr. Stahlman has been in business for 54 years in San Diego and he’s very highly thought of in the legal community, and he’s very highly thought of in the community as a whole. He doesn’t want to offend anybody. Therefore, we were very careful in how we did this commercial…. We wanted to make light of the situation, but we didn’t want to offend anyone, and I think we straddled that line pretty well.”

Asked what GLAAD’s reaction was to the spot, Gutierrez said, “The visual and the subtlety of it was concerning…. It was really hard to kind of capture something that was defamatory, because they were very strategic about how they placed the joke that took on the gay community…. I mean it was disturbing, but the way they cut those clips, it was hard to say, from our perspective, that they shouldn’t run them. We said that they were inappropriate.”

Gutierrez said he and two others from GLAAD had viewed the commercial, Regional Director Glenda Testone and Northwest Regional Media Manager Calvin Fleming.

When contacted for a comment, Fleming said he did not recall having seen the spot and was not authorized to comment on it. Testone did not return a phone call by press time.

Gutierrez said King Stahlman also pointed to their competitor’s ad as being a more egregious violation.

Though Gutierrez said he had not yet seen the spot for Already Out, after having been read a description of it, he said, “If your description is the visual that I’m imagining, then we would be a lot harsher with them…. That would be something we would take on; that would be something (where) we would continuously, proactively be asking them to pull (the ad).”

When the Gay and Lesbian Times contacted Already Out for a comment, the response from a manager at the San Diego location was, “Have you seen that other [King Stahlman] commercial? It’s more offensive than ours. Watch it and then call me back.” The man then hung up the phone. Subsequent requests for a return phone call from the Times and from GLAAD had not been returned as of press time.

“At the end of the day, we’re saying that the [King Stahlman] ad is inappropriate,” Gutierrez concluded.…“We kept looking at it over and over and we still came to the conclusion that, yes, it still relies heavily on the age-old stereotype of gays in prison. That’s clear from the portrayal. It’s most likely distasteful to many in the gay and lesbian community. We don’t endorse it.”

Hardwick responded, saying he had received an e-mail from Gutierrez stating otherwise. “I’ll read to you exactly what Eddie (Gutierrez) said to me: ‘After reviewing the ad clip, we understand. No need to follow-up. We just wanted to make sure the calls and e-mails would be answered only after we have seen the ad.’

“Then he called me in follow-up to this e-mail,” Hardwick continued, “and said, ‘Thank you so much for sending that to me. We laughed; we had a great time watching it. No problem.’ And that was the tone of his e-mail too — no need to follow up, no problem, we understand.”

Already Out Bail Bonds is a client of Channel 10 sales representative Matt Nordberg, who explained that the Already Out jail segment only runs during rebroadcast news segments on Channel 15, whose advertising is controlled by Cox cable.

Nordberg said he had seen the ad in question and spoken to the owner of Already Out about advertising with his station.

“I asked, ‘What’s your reaction to this ad that’s on right now?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s got a mixed reaction, we kind of do it just for the shock affect.’ I said, ‘I don’t think if we did do advertising with you we’d be able to use this particular spot, we’d have to use some other spots, because it’s a little too controversial for our station.’”

Asked if there is any sort of policy or board at Channel 10 to look at sensitivity issues in advertisements, Nordberg replied, “No. As far as news Channel 15, if you have a spot during our news, when the news is simulcast, then that commercial is on 15, but once the news repeats, then Cox Cable steps in and they put their own advertising in. So, really, we’re not responsible for the ads that Cox Cable runs.... I can see, though, where you’re coming from.”

Could Channel 10 ultimately contact Cox and ask them not to run this ad? “Probably,” said Nordberg, “because it’s a partnership that we have with Cox. So, if there was something that we thought was extremely offensive, we would probably sit down and have a meeting about it.”