IN GOOD COMPANY

“One Million Moms” Boycotts Macy’s, JCPenney For Gay-Friendly Marketing. Where Will They Get Their Elastic Pants?!?

Two major American department stores came under fire by a homophobic hate group today, making us wish we had more money to spend at those stores.

First came news that Macy’s had ticked off  the group One Million Moms because the company featured a wedding cake with two grooms on in a wedding-registry promotion in its most recent mail catalog.

The home page on OneMillionMoms.com encourages readers to send Macy’s a pre-written e-mail that includes the following:

“In the hopes of making sales, your company has instead offended many customers in the process. The back cover looks like just a regular ad for your wedding registry service, but there is one major difference with the cake topper of two men instead of the traditional man and woman. The ad also includes a license plate that reads “I do” and hearts scattered everywhere. Just because gay marriage is legal in a few states does not mean this is appropriate marketing. As a conservative customer I will not support it.

While your company is a household name, I do not agree with your irresponsible choice of standing behind gay marriage. The homosexual content is highly offensive and not family-friendly advertising.

As a consumer, I am asking you to please pull your “two groom” ad immediately and support traditional family values instead of this liberal agenda. My decision to shop in your store depends on it.

We sincerely hope corporations like Macy’s don’t take such mass emails seriously—or at least check the ISPs those notices come from.

Ironically, the wedding cake in question is just a small part of a full page ad—the cake topper itself is practically indistinguishable  to the naked eye. You’d either have to know to look for it, or spend all day scanning ads for signs of dangerous pro-gay messages.

We’re pretty sure the folks at OneMillionMoms.com are doing just that.

OMM didn’t stop with the red-star retailer, though. Next they went after JCPenney for hiring Ellen DeGeneres as its newest spokesperson.

“Funny that JCPenney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JCPenney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.

Their marketing strategy is to help families shop and receive a good value for their money. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales.

Right, because hiring one of the most popular and trusted names in entertainment always works out badly for advertisers?

Thankfully the company seems to stand behind its celebrity spokesperson. “We share the same fundamental values as Ellen,” said  JCPenney president Michael Francis earlier this week, “We couldn’t think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience.” To make sure JCPenney doesn’t get cold feet, though, GLAAD has launched a special Stand Up for Ellen campaign.

And just so you know, OneMillionMoms.com is a side project of the American Family Association—which pretty much guarantees:

a. it doesn’t have a million members and

b. it’s run by a man.

And, of course, Ellen has also served as a spokesperson for American Express and CoverGirl. But we imagine credit cards and makeup are probably things OMM members know next to nothing about.

Images: Macys, Mike Strand, Glenn Francis

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