This post is part of our Ads Gone Bad series. Share your thoughts and memories of this ad in the comments, and be sure to check out our other posts on marketing gone wrong.

Bloggers weren't kind to Nike's campaign for its Hyperdunk basketball shoes in late July. Three printed ads produced by Wieden+Kennedy were blamed as fostering anti-gay messages.

Most of the ads depicted one basketball player dunking over another in vaguely homo-erotic positions (mostly with one player's face in the other's crotch) with 'trash talk'-type slogans such as "Punks Jump Up," "Say Hello," "That Ain't Right." The hot-button line was from a popular 1992 rap song, "Punks Jump Up to get Beat Down," by Brand Nubian. The song was a good theme for basketball courts but for one thing; its lyrics, which advocated violence against homosexuals and featured the line, "I ain't down with gays."

At first, Nike supported the ad campaign. But when bloggers took the shoe giant to task for its "ethical sloppiness," Nike and its ad agency backed off and decided to withdraw the ads "to underline our ongoing commitment to supporting diversity in sport and the workplace."

Nike's move coincided with an ad-industry-wide debate about the use of gay stereotypes. Mars, Inc. also pulled an ad during the same week based on its criticism from national homosexual groups.

Whatever other problems it has, Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) has, historically, been on the side of the gay community. From sponsoring athletes at the Gay Games to offering domestic partnership benefits to its gay and lesbian employees, there is little fault for a gay rights activist to find with Nike.

But that didn't stop some people from making up fake controversies. The company's ads for its Hyperdunk basketball shoes feature competing basketball players in photos with heads in each other's crotches, hands on butts, etc. -- stuff that happens all the time during basketball games.

Now, in response to the criticism, the company is pulling the ads, citing its desire "to underline our ongoing commitment to supporting diversity in sport and the workplace."

The ads are funny and they're not homophobic -- Nike's track record on these issues demonstrates that. LGBT activists who make an issue out of stuff like this marginalize the real issues, by making it look like there aren't bigger battles to fight. With one presidential candidate who just learned what "LGBT" means, there clearly are. But silly stuff like this will turn people off and prevent those issues from being taken seriously.