Thursday, February 9, 2012

One Million Morons

I don't shop at JC Penney.....but I just might start.  


I realize that I am more than a little delayed in responding to this news story.  It's stuck with me for the better part of a week---and, if I'm being honest--I've been unable to shake it.  This is possibly because this story is so off-the-chain outlandish that I initially hard a hard time believing it to be true.


The synopsis:
  1. JC Penney recently appointed Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesmodel.
  2. In response, One Million Moms, a "traditional values" group,  campaigned against JC Penney and Ellen.  Why?  Because Ellen is gay. Because Ellen's sexual orientation defied their definition of "traditional values."
  3. JC Penney sticks by Ellen (yay, JC Penney!)
Following is the post that appeared on the One Million Moms website:


By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.


Are these people FOR REAL?  


And to think that all this time, I thought that JC Penney was where my mom bought her curtains.  I didn't realize that some misguided portion of the American populace thought that it was a storefront for hatred.


People have values.  People steadfastly stand behind their values.  This is all fine, good, and to be expected.  Values are deeply personal.  This, too, is fine, good, and to be expected.  I just looked it up, and value is defined as "relative worth, merit, or importance."  There is virtually nothing in the words of the One Million Morons   Moms that can construed as having any worth, any merit, or any importance.  It's not value.  It's just hate.  Stupid, ugly, unnecessary, pointless hate.


And then there's the word that's so frequently paired with "values".  Traditional.   Don't get me wrong--many traditions are wonderful.  Maybe even most traditions are wonderful.  Some traditions, however, are not wonderful.  Slavery was once a tradition in this country.  State mandated racial segregation was once a tradition in this country.  Women not having the right to vote was once a tradition in this country. And to me, it's goddamned scary when someone confuses the concept of institutionalized disenfranchisement of groups of people with the concept of "traditional values"--and it's even more scary when groups of these like-yet-small-minded bozos join forces to bring back the "good old days." WTF.


Again, they don't stand for values.  They stand for ignorance.  They stand for hate.


Ellen, though?  She seems to have the concept of "values" down pat, as evidenced in her response:


Here are the values I stand for. I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you’d want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values. That’s what I stand for … I also believe in dance.


Me too, Ellen.  Me, too.....(and bravo, JC Penney)


Hate is not a family value,

No comments:

Post a Comment