One Million Moms On The Attack – Again

Don’t you just love a good rumble?

Although, I have to confess that I was really considering not adding this post about One Million Moms at all, it feels somehow wrong to even recognize their existence, as if I’m somehow validating their right to be… well… a group of hate-filled religious extremists, I guess!

Yes, the American Family Associations nastiest splinter group is back in the spotlight again, and from the people who brought you the attack on Home Depot for supporting Gay Pride, the scatter-brained attack against GLEE, and their “boycott” of almost every brand seen in any ad break for any program they think is “Trashy”, they’re now ‘going after’ Toys ‘R’ Us!

Aside from pointing out that they watch far too much TV (that’s those right-wing Christian stay-at-home moms for you. If they’re not out in the woods shooting Deer they’re sat on their ass eating cookies, getting fat and finding anything they can to scream at the world about) I thought it would be fun to show you how the most vociferous people who claim to be “freedom-loving” and “Christian” are often anything but.

Let me tell you about this latest battle in their imagined “culture war” (yes, that’s what they think they’re taking part in, bless them).

So we’ll start back when they decided to attack JC Penny for bringing Ellen Degeneres in to represent their brand.

Of course, as shoppers – and right-wing Christian religious extremists – they love shopping, ironically that’s something they have in common with us! So when JC Penny asked the gorgeous, funny, smart and well adjusted Ellen Degeneres to become their spokeswoman (can you tell I’m a fan?) the One Million Moms crazies realized that they had nothing in common with this personality. I think that’s what it comes down to really. It seems that all the people they attack are actually intelligent, well-rounded, mentally stable modern people, and that’s totally the opposite of what OMM is about!

So, the OMM extremists demanded that JC Penny remove Ellen as their spokesperson, and they issued their demand with the threat that JC Penny would loose customers if they did not comply with their demands. Of course, OMM didn’t consider that they are actually running far short of being one million, they’re more like 20,000 (and even that is a very generous guess). In reality the OMM group is likely no larger than your average knitting club in Texas.

They often make claims that their “pressure” on companies has resulted in success, when in fact they neglect that advertising across all industries has become extremely limited due to the financial crisis. It’s actually quite funny to see companies complying with their demands on the face of it, just to placate them. But I do wish these companies would be honest and say “we couldn’t give a crap about your unreasonable demands, we cut the ads for budget reasons and not because you threatened us!”

What this fanatical group also underestimated, is that you need to have public support for a boycott of any large company, and the numbers supporting Ellen and JC Penny far outweighs the number of fanatics demanding this change. One look at their little social network shows that they barely have 2000 members – I have more people following me on another blog. Maybe that’s why thousands of FaceBook pages sprang up within hours of the demand being made public, all supporting Ellen and JC Penny, and all heaping insult on the OMM mentalists. Perhaps that’s also why the One Million Moms own FaceBook page is constantly under attack from others who would like to stop their hate for good?

So what’s their beef now?

The wonderful Toys ‘R’ Us store has decided to stock a comic book which sends OMM into a rage. It’s actually quite easy to do that, you just need to be someone they don’t like, have a lifestyle that doesn’t involve throwing shit at other people like a crazed monkey in a cage, and be a reasonable person. Basically, normality, freedom, Human rights and genuine Christian values are their nemeses.

Toys ‘R’ Us recognizes that the modern world is more open, tolerant and diverse than OMM can bear to imagine, and they stock an Archie comic which features a gay wedding on the front!

I know, sales of that particular comic must be going through the roof right now! lol

OMM doesn’t like this expression of freedom and normality, being Christian extremists and all. They’re not too comfortable with the idea of their child asking “mommy, oh wise one, why is there a picture of two men who seem to be getting married on the cover of that comic? Won’t they burn in Hell for all eternity?” (remember, these poor kids are being raised by the equivalent of Carrie’s mom. They’re the kinds of parents who psychologically abuse their kids until said child is climbing a clock tower to rid the world of people they don’t understand).

You see, to the rest of us, it’s simple. Any normal parent put in that situation would say “Timmy (all kids in these stories are always called Timmy), when people fall in love and they choose to express their commitment to each other through marriage, they have a party to show their commitment to all their friends and family. Just like mommy and daddy fell in love and married, those two men fell in love and want to celebrate their love for each other with all their friends and family too.”

See, that’s not so hard is it? No mention of where the whoo-hoo’s go and the child is more enlightened. Instead, these parents would rather keep their child ignorant. Even if they don’t agree with same-sex marriage, they are putting their children at a disadvantage in a world where their extreme views are not acceptable to the majority. Parents should want the best for their child, but these parents clearly don’t.

So maybe that’s the problem, these so-called parents don’t want their child to be enlightened. They don’t want their kids growing up in an America where people actually do have freedom. Because they don’t agree with something, and even though it makes no difference to their lives if Chris and Charles down the road can marry, they’d love to force their will on the rest of society. They’re terrified of difference of any kind and they’ll sit in their darkened little corners (presumably stroking a crucifix and a Bible) hurling bile at a world that’s moved on without them, powerless to change it. And their kids – God bless their damaged little minds – are at risk of growing up to be just as damaged and hateful as them.

Let me make this statement – these parents think that their children are at risk from a comic book, when in reality they are at direct risk of growing up to become horrid people, full of hate and bigotry. Which would a SANE parent rather have, questions about gay marriage, or a child who wastes their life hating other people for things that are none of their business and completely beyond their control?

The most important thing to take away from this is the knowledge that the majority of people who view themselves as Christian, with decent values and morals, do not agree with the extremist attitudes of the One Million Moms group. The vast majority of Christians are not Fred Phelps and they are not members of this hate group. They’re nothing like these anonymous crazies lashing out at anything they don’t like (instead of just shaking their heads and switching off the TV like the rest of us do when Bieber appears). They fully accept that many of the teachings of their religion have been hijacked and manipulated, misread and adjusted to suit those who would love nothing more than to dictate their own demands to the rest of the world.

Ultimately, the One Million Moms group will fail in this, just as they’ve failed in everything else. And why? Because they are a tiny and insignificant minority having a hissy-fit, while all the real adults, the real parents and the real freedom-loving American’s look on in embarrassment.

They’re weak and ineffectual. They know they’ve already lost their imagined “culture war”, otherwise they would proudly stand and be counted. Instead they hide behind a webpage, making demands on the rest of the world and making threats they simply cannot live up to.

But, you can actually do something to help their demise. You can contact Toys ‘R’ Us and thank them for their modern attitudes. OMM has an email campaign against Toys ‘R’ Us right now, demanding that they remove the Archie comic from their stores. You can do something by emailing Toys ‘R’ Us and thanking them. Make their few thousand (probably a few hundred, actually) emails from One Million Moms pale into insignificance with the wealth of loving support from the rest of society. It’ll take ten minutes to reach out to Toys ‘R’ Us and show them that the people support their inclusive attitudes through an email.