Remember back in the summer when Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy made waves with controversial comments about gays, lesbians and the pending destruction of America?
Conservatives rallied, went out for lunch, and otherwise denounced as un-American the anti-free-speech left.
Ahem.
“Since April, JC Penney’s has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now. A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets.”
That’s a statement from a group that calls itself One Million Moms, overstating its actual reach on the order of 20 times, but anyway. The Moms, an offshoot of the ultraconservative American Family Association, aren’t happy with the TV spot featuring DeGeneres because she’s, well, you know, a lesbian.
So now, suddenly, what was so anti-American back in the summer when some on the left (including, notably, me) raised issue with Dan Cathy is now perfectly OK because, well, we all have double standards these days, now, don’t we?
Bob Costas uses the 90 seconds that NBC gives him to editorialize on sports topics at halftime the other night to rant about gun violence, and it’s not free speech, but a firing offense, because conservative commentators said so.
Liberals, for what it’s worth, are mad at the likes of Kid Rock and Stacey Dash for daring to say publicly that they supported Mitt Romney for president back during the election cycle.
(Kid Rock, I can see, because, how to say this politely – he’s still somewhat culturally relevant. Stacey Dash? Seriously? How can you be upset at somebody who hasn’t done anything significant since 1998?)
I had dinner with my wife and my three teen-age nieces at Chick-fil-A the other night. When I lift weights at the gym, Kid Rock is on my iPod.
I’m actually not what you’d call that big a fan of Ellen DeGeneres. Her humor is way, way too dry for me, and that’s saying a lot, considering my own arid sense of humor.
That said, Ellen should be able to make bad commercials, and JCPenney should be able to exploit little people for the sake of our amusement to buttress their neverending effort to sell sweaters.
The Several Thousand Moms have every right to raise whatever objections they want to. Just don’t tell me that I’m an anti-American enemy of free speech and apple pie the next time I raise objection to something that you agree with.
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