One Million Moms, a hateful collective of a few thousand insufferable busybodies, has once again called for its members to break out the torches and pitchforks and attack JC Penney. At issue is a single page in the department store chain's May catalog that depicts a lesbian couple doing horrible, abominable things like smiling, hugging, and wearing wedding rings. Wait'll they see the gay bacchanalia that is the summer footwear section.
According to OMM's website, JC Penney went too far when they hired remarkably likable uncloseted lesbian Ellen Degeneres as a spokesmodel, but they've gone double extra too far with this picture, which, in their words, is akin to the store "taking sides" in a "culture war." The press release calls on its members to voice their disdain for the yucky lesbians, since the store will also be hearing from "the other side."
I'd say that "taking sides" in a "culture war" would be more like picturing two nice lesbians named Wendi and her partner Maggie and their daughters and more like releasing a catalog showing exclusively lesbians pointing and laughing at crying heterosexual Christian couples who were being sent off to labor camps in the New Queertopia JC Penney was raising money and arms to form, but — tomato, tomahto.
Once you get past the initial call to action, the press release sort of reads like a sad story of OMM's own cultural irrelevance, including oblique references to their unsuccessful efforts earlier this year to get JCP to dump Ellen and JC Penney's subsequent giving of zero fucks about what homophobes think.
Last time OMM contacted JC Penney store managers, we were brushed off. Some even experienced in person the store manager saying "Thank you" and walking off while their customer and our concerned members were in mid-sentence. OMM has been told that JCP corporate office told store managers to say "Thank you" and then walk away. If they want our business, then we will not be ignored!
Apologies to the millions and millions of irate mothers, but the mental image that paragraph creates — angry vitriol spewing women wasting the time of disinterested and dismissive JC Penney employees, the impotent fist shaking and the "we will not be ignored!" — warms the cockles of my heart.
Keep chasing those windmills, you dreamers.
[OMM]