Anti-LGBT Group Calls Off JC Penney Boycott

Zack Budryk
March 9, 2012

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Read More: Ellen DeGeneres, JC Penney, One Million Moms

DeGeneres in a new ad campaign for the retail store.

One Million Moms, an offshoot of the anti-gay American Family Foundation, has announced an end to their boycott of JC Penney Thursday, saying they have other, more pressing concerns.

OMM initially announced the boycott in response to the department store’s hiring of openly gay comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. JC Penney’s has stood by DeGeneres since the boycott was announced, as did the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which launched the counter-campaign Stand Up for Ellen. Surprisingly, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly stood up for DeGeneres as well, telling former Concerned Women for America Sandy Rios that the campaign was a “witch hunt”.

DeGeneres came out in 1997, which resulted in a similar campaign against her self-titled sitcom, which had worked the revelation into the show’s plot. “I usually don’t talk about stuff like this on my show, but I really want to thank everyone who is supporting me,” DeGeneres said on her talk show in February. “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.”

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Zack Budryk, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, has been writing since age 10 working towards a career of advocacy-based investigative journalism.