We are not amused: a homophobic commercial by the maker of Snickers candy bars shows just how far we still need to go.

It's not that we have no sense of humor. But we're not laughing at the Super Bowl's Snickers commercial in which two straight guys accidentally kiss and then feel a need to prove their manliness by ripping out their chest hair. In fact, the commercial shows just how far we still need to go before we can laugh at such a thing.

It's good that Snickers and its parent company, Masterfoods, pulled the much-maligned television spot before it could run during the Daytona 500. Before doing so they defended it as harmless humor that was enjoyed by most who watched it. Indeed, the ad could be seen as simply poking fun at the insecurities of a couple of emotionally immature lunkheads. After all, we're all fair game for humorous jabs--if they're fair.

But the underlying homophobia was made clear when Snickers posted a video on its Web site featuring several professional football players disgusted by the kiss between the two men. "Do they have to kiss like that?" one asks as he recoils from the computer screen.

The fact that a kiss between two men can still be portrayed as "shocking" is why we didn't laugh. Maybe there was no malice behind the commercial, but it illustrates how little we've progressed on the spectrum of social acceptance. We've moved beyond the time when we weren't even talked about or portrayed in the media. But we're still in a time when our sexual orientation is presented as a minstrel show. And we're still in a time when the promotion of homophobic attitudes in the media can damage or endanger the lives of young gay people.

Until gay kids are no longer beaten up by those who have taken their cues watching antigay behavior on television, we won't be laughing.

But we are getting there. The speed with which Masterfoods killed the commercial and its accompanying homophobic online video is a good sign, as was the recent and overwhelming outcry against Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington's use of an antigay slur to describe costar T.R. Knight, who subsequently came out [see story on page 28]. There may be laughter on the horizon.