Should Ben and Jerry's have come out for gay marriage?

Are food companies trying to take a leaf out of pop stars' books by taking publicity-generating stands on political issues?
Ben and Jerry's Hubby Hubby ice cream
Ben and Jerry's Hubby Hubby ice cream, renamed to celebrate the legalisation of gay marriage in Vermont. Photograph: Ben and Jerry's

It seems you can't fill a shopping basket these days without also buying into some sort of ideology.

Yesterday, chocolatiers Gü announced plans to donate 10p from each sale of their soufflé boxes to a cancer charity (güd on 'em. If that brings the hot ramekins an extra warm, charitable glow). On Tuesday Ben and Jerry's renamed their 'Chubby Hubby' flavour ice cream 'Hubby Hubby' in celebration of Vermont's legalisation of gay marriage. Isn't it odd, incidentally, that only the boys' unions should be so lauded? Girls, strangely, seem to have been frozen out.

These kind of gestures don't always end well - Starbucks famously had to cancel its widely-publicised free coffee on US presidential election day when it emerged that it could be a contravention of electoral law. Companies might do well to think these things through more before nailing their products to the mast of some campaign. Whatever next? The Werther's Original cast marching with the Countryside Alliance? Coco the monkey pointing the finger at Huntingdon Life Sciences?

Ben & Jerry's make an excellent product. We like it. So much so, you may remember, that we sent Vicky Frost along to the company to develop a Word of Mouth ice cream flavour a few months back, and much fun was had. The company was founded in the hippest hippy traditions, far-out and right-on, and the takeover by Unilever seems scarcely to have undermined this.

And though I agree with their sentiment, it's a gloopy business when a company celebrates the election of a president with the flavour 'Yes Pecan'. In an age when ice cream companies are melting away and reforming as purveyors of frozen yoghurt, is this dinky piece of homespun cheeriness really the best focus of the company's efforts?

That gay people should be able to get married seems to me a basic human right, and I admit that in a completely partisan way I was tempted to justify B&J's action as part of the ongoing struggle against ignorance and fear. But what would I be thinking if a contrary point of view was being aired? I'd be first in line to denounce them as squalid influence peddlers, shamelessly meddlesome, shiveringly undemocratic tricksters.

Ice cream should be a relief from side-taking. It soothes and softens, comforts and consoles. B&J's sentiment is noble, but the side of a half-gallon tub is no place to daub political slogans – it's a distraction from the guzzling pleasure.

I'm keen to hear what you think. Should food companies get involved in politics, or should they abstain from the debates? Can a tub of ice cream ever soften moral beliefs, or do mottos like 'Hubby Hubby' only freeze and harden these views?