You might have heard the kerfuffle earlier this month about the icky sweet Hallmark Channel getting into a not-so-sweet mess over its short-lived ban over an LGBTQ-friendly advertisement, and the howls of controversy that followed. The controversy has since settled down. Still, it was a textbook case about how corporations ought to be in tune with public opinion, and basic fairness when they make some decisions.
The Hallmark Channel is in its prime season right now, with movies with the same, frankly tired theme.
A woman or a man is cynical about Christmas. The couple meet, don't get along at first, fall in love, and everything becomes so romantic and sentimental with the intention of driving the audience into happy holiday cheers.
That's not my style, but then again, a lot of people love it. More power to them! I endorse anything that brings people joy.
But here's the joyless part.
An outfit called One Million Moms, basically a wholly owned subidiary of the American Family Association, was hugely upset when they saw an ad on the Hallmark Channel of a same-gender couple, two women, in a wedding ad by Zola.
"One Million Moms is asking once again or Hallmark to stay true to its family friendly roots that so many families have grown to love, and to keep sex and sexual conduct - incluing the promotion of homosexualithy - out of its programming."
Though, apparently, One Million Moms seemed perfectly fine with straight couples kissing, but whatever.
Even worse, One Million Moms cited the Bible, Romans1:18-32, which suggests we should just kill all the gays:
"Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die."
OK, we should note that One Million Moms probably does not consist of one million real moms. Whatever this organization is, they basically boycott everything that doesn't adhere to Christian fundamentalists' White Jesus perspective.
One wag on Twitter suggested that One Millon Moms is just 20 Karens.
At least according to GLAAD, an LGBTQ support organization, One Million Moms is basically just one annoying woman. Jeremy Hooper writes:
"It is basically One Meddling Mom with an agenda, and no company should be giving her the credence she so desperately craves.
Her name is Monica Cole. I the decade that I have been aware of One Millio Moms, she is quite literally the only staff member I have ever heard anyone name. She is the one and only person who appears on their petitions, as well as the one and only person who speaks for them to the media. She is the mom. Her. Solo. One Person, supposedly representing one."
Hallmark officials, thinking that "one million moms" were pissed off about the lesbian wedding ad, pulled the plug on it.
Of course the problem with that was, more than a million people for sure, including me, were pissed off at Hallmark for being bigoted, or least appearing to be. News of this broke on a December midmonth Saturday.
By that Sunday night, facing a furious backlash, Hallmark just as furiously backpeddled. As Buzzfeed News and many other media outlets reported, Mike Perry, president and CEO of Hallmark Cards said the company was "truly sorry" for the brief ad shutdown.
"The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we've seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused. Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision. We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused."
Hallmark also said it would work with GLAAD to better represent ethe LGBTQ community.
The abrupt reversal, I'm sorry to say, was probably not some newfound sense of fairness, but one of money. Hallmark quickly realized that the people who objected to Zola lesbian wedding ads airing on the network was far smaller than the number of people pissed off by the decision.
Which has better revenue potential? A few religious zealots or a huge bunch of basically fair minded consumers?
I'm not saying this is really wrong. It is the free market. People can choose to patronize or not patronize any business for any reason (unless it goes to the extreme of violating hate laws).
Corporations must always sort of thread the needle to figure out how not to annoy its customers, because they want to keep them. Hallmark did not thread the needle, and a public relations fiasco resulted.
In the end, Hallmark managed to mostly recover. Zola said they would resume advertising with Hallmark, other advertisers stuck with them, and the outrage over the Hallmark Channel's initial has waned.
All the more reason to research outfits that are attacking you to see if there is any bite behind the bark. In the case of One Million Moms, the bark had nothing behind it. Oh well. Let other conpanies beware!
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