Lest there be any confusion, this week’s Creep is not just a million random ladies with kids. One Million Moms is an affiliate of the American Family Association. So you can imagine how much these moms love homos.
OMM loves homos so much that they won’t stop calling J.C. Penney Co. to talk about them. Or, specifically, “her,” as in one particular homo: Ellen DeGeneres.
I know what you’re thinking: J.C. Penney still exists? And there are really people who are freaked that Ellen’s gay? I thought both of those things became non-issues in 1997.
Well, not so much.
In any case, DeGeneres recently signed on to be J.C. Penney’s celebrity spokesperson, and antigay folks are fuming because obviously J.C. Penney is trying to recruit young ladies onto Team Lesbo by selling Hush Puppies, tailored suit jackets and softball jerseys in the junior miss section. Also, Ellen will most likely be giving live, in-store lesbian sex demonstrations. Otherwise, what’s there to fuss over?
Plenty, if you read the One Million Moms’ poorly written alerts on their website.
“Funny that J.C. Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families,” OMM muses. “DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of J.C. 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.”
I’m not sure if OMM has noticed, but Ellen DeGeneres has a wildly popular TV show and millions of people love her. So it seems a bit of a stretch to say the “majority” of J.C. Penney shoppers are going to go buy their $8 knit fashion tops and $4 bath towels somewhere less gay-friendly.
Well, I’ll give them one thing: DeGeneres really isn’t a true representation of J.C. Penney’s customer base. But it’s not because she’s a lesbian. It’s because she’s rich.
OMM is determined to bring J.C. Penney to its gay-loving knees and they’ve been working the phones demanding that Ellen be fired.
“Ask J.C. Penney to replace Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war,” the OMM website reads.
And, of course, to groups like OMM and its parent group, the AFA, being “neutral” means pretending that LGBT people do not exist. And having a prominent lesbian representing a store where “families” shop makes that fiction ever harder to live by.
Apparently the OMM call-in campaign isn’t working, as J.C. Penney has announced it has no intention to fire Ellen. And OMM is complaining on their website that J.C. Penney’s corporate HQ keeps hanging up on them. Their solution? Call the managers of local stores and harass them instead.
Rather than bother folks with actual work to do, why not fight fire with fabulous and go shopping? Plopping some of your hard-earned dollars down on a J.C. Penney counter is the best way to thank them for not caving to antigay bigotry.
And I wasn’t kidding when I said they had $4 bath towels. They even have them in totally gay colors like purple opulence, garnet and exotic pink. Remember, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!
D’Anne Witkowski is a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.