J.C. Penney Under Fire from ‘One Million Moms’ for Ad Featuring Same Sex Couple
Father’s Day is coming up, and what better way to honor dads than to run an ad featuring a family that has two of them? This was the thinking behind an advertisement that appears in the J.C. Penney June catalog. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees.
The ad, pictured to the right, depicts real-life couple Todd Koch and Cooper Smith horsing around with their two 3-year-old children. The copy reads, “What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver – all rolled into one. Or two.”
The advertisement prompted anti-gay (or ‘anti-sin’, as they call themselves) organization One Million Moms to call for a boycott of the store – the second boycott of J.C. Penney they’ve called for this year. The group released a statement, saying,
“It is obvious that JCP would rather take sides than remain neutral in the culture war. JCP will hear from the other side so they need to hear from us as well. Our persistence will pay off! One day we will answer for our actions or lack of them. We must remain diligent and stand up for Biblical values and truth. Scripture says multiple times that homosexuality is wrong, and God will not tolerate this sinful nature.”
The statement also asks the public to return J.C. Penney catalogs, as well as to call and email the company to complain.
One Million Moms called for a boycott of the company earlier this year after the store announced that Ellen DeGeneres would be its new spokesperson. They later called off the boycott due to the fact that it failed miserably. J.C. Penney stood their ground, and received loads of free publicity as a result of the controversy.
I decided to check out One Million Moms’ Twitter page. They have 1,541 followers at the time of writing. ‘One Million’ indeed.
I’d like to finish this article with a relevant picture, and a caption that you may have seen around the Internet, adapted for this story.
One Million Moms: imagine how stupid you’ll look in 40 years.
