As most breathing people now know, the Hallmark Channel, known for airing movies that families with intact moral compasses can watch with their children, upset its apple cart last week by secretly tossing in a poisoned apple for the kiddies to feast on. The apple came in the form of a commercial for the wedding planning website Zola that depicted a couple standing together at a glittering, Hallmark-worthy wedding altar at which they say their I do’s and then kiss. The poison was the smoochers were two women.

To be clear, I am not arguing that homosexual persons per se are poisonous. I am arguing that a glossy, prettified image of a deeply sinful type of union is poisonous to the minds and hearts of children who are especially vulnerable to propaganda.

Not surprisingly, parents and grandparents with intact moral compasses were shocked and angry. They felt blindsided and betrayed by a channel they had, heretofore, been able to trust. They expressed their anger and disappointment to Hallmark, many via a petition started by One Million Moms, a division of the American Family Association, which asked that Hallmark “reconsider airing commercials with same-sex relationships” and to refrain from adding “LGBTQ movies to the Hallmark Channel.” Hallmark removed the ad, and then the “LGBT” lobby took aim. Somehow, in just two days, those oppressed, silenced, marginalized, persecuted, powerless homosexuals we hear so much about were able to persuade Hallmark that it owes more to them than it does to conservatives.

On Sunday, Hallmark reversed course again and issued a sycophantic apology to men and women who mock the institution that God created to represent Christ and his bride, the church; who engage in erotic acts that the creator of the universe abhors; who indoctrinate children with a perverse sexual ideology; who seek to wash the public square clean of moral cleanliness; and who seek to punish those who hold fast to truth.

In a statement Mike Perry, Hallmark Cards president and CEO, said,

We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused. … We have LGBTQ greeting cards and feature LGBTQ couples in commercials. We have been recognized as one of the Human Rights Campaigns Best Places to Work. … Hallmark will be working with [the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation] to better represent the LGBTQ community across our portfolio of brands.

Note, there was no apology to theologically orthodox Christians whose identity is found in Christ and who are striving mightily to protect their children from ideas and images that violate what Scripture teaches.

This is what happens when people without an intact moral compass lead. They are buffeted about by the cultural winds and their own love of money.

After Hallmark (momentarily) pulled the ad, foolish people lost in spiritual darkness said and tweeted dumb stuff.  For example, California governor Gavin Newsome tweeted, “Same-sex marriage is the law of the land. There is no one way to love and be loved.” There is a kernel of truth in his tweet. There is not one way to love and be loved, and some of the ways to love and be loved should not include erotic acts.

Chicago mayor and lesbian Lori Lightfoot tweeted,

The holidays are a time of family, generosity and decency. @hallmarkchannel should reconsider their misguided decision to ban an ad featuring a same-sex couple. Representation is important in all forms of media—even advertising.

Lots of nonsense to unpack.

First, referring to same-sex couples as decent is indecent and, therefore, ironic. While each person in the couple may possess admirable qualities, the erotic aspect of the relationship is intrinsically indecent. Whatever love the partners feel for each other is corrupted by the misuse of their bodies.

Second, commitments to generosity do not require humans to affirm everything that other humans feel, desire, think, and do. In the spirit of generosity, would Lightfoot affirm the feelings and beliefs of theologically orthodox Christians on matters related to sexuality? In the spirit of generosity, would she agree to allowing even one streaming service to decline to show ads or programming that depict images of homoerotic relationships?

Third, Lightfoot does not really mean that all human phenomena or even all types of relationships should be represented in all forms of media. What she means is all phenomena or all types of relationships that she has concluded are morally acceptable should be represented in all forms of media.

The perpetually ignorant Chicago Tribune “lifestyle expert,” Heidi Stevens, wrote,

Movies and commercials are family-friendly when they include all sorts of families and when they acknowledge that love isn’t reserved for straight people.

Does Stevens think that in order for movies and commercials to be family-friendly, they should include polyamorous and polygamous families? What about families where the parents are two brothers who experience Genetic Sexual Attraction?

Stevens really ought to give wide berth to strawmen. No one argues that love is reserved for straight people. Many people, however, believe that sex is not only reserved for male-female relationships, but it can only occur within a male-female relationship, and they also believe that erotic acts should be reserved for only male-female relationships. Further, the source of that belief is not self-serving desire. The source of that belief is God’s holy word. And God’s word is no less legitimate than Steven’s self-originating blather.

Without defining love or proving that “love is love,” homosexual activists and their regressive allies either intentionally or ignorantly fail to distinguish between types of love. Those types are philia love (i.e., friendship), agape love (i.e., the love of God for man and man for God), storge love (i.e., familial love), and erotic love. While Stevens, GLAAD, Gavin Newsome, and all the entertainers squawking about “homophobia” last week may believe that sexual differentiation is irrelevant to erotic love, their views carry no more moral weight than the dissenting views of conservatives. What these oppressors carry is political power that they wield with gleeful abandon to stigmatize and “other” others.

In every society, some group will be oppressed. Some beliefs will be deemed anathema. Some actions will be viewed as immoral and stigmatized. There will never be a time or place when “judgmentalism”—that is, making distinctions about the rightness or wrongness of ideas and acts—will cease. Now, as faith in the one true God wanes in America, increasing numbers of people walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat of scoffers.

Let’s see how Hallmark fares in the next year or so with only the “LGBT” crowd and its allies to support it. Oh wait, Hallmark is going to start offering family-friendly homosexual fare (now there’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one). With assistance from the “LGBT” division of Hallmark Cards, the Hallmark Channel shouldn’t find such brown-nosing too difficult.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Hallmark-Channel-Lesbians.mp3

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-and, please-

It’s the New Year and time to purge our lives of things that impede spiritual growth, like unedifying television shows and reading material. No, I’m not talking about porn of either the hard or softcore variety—though our lives must be purged of that.

I’m talking about Highlights magazine for children ages 6-10, Highlights’ High Five magazine for ages 2-6, and Highlights’ Hello magazine for ages 0-2.

In case you missed this unfortunate story, it all started back at the end of September when lesbian activist and attorney Kristina Wertz and her partner, activist Kara Desiderio, sent an email to Highlights magazine expressing their disappointment that Highlights doesn’t depict homosexual families in their Hello magazine for babies. Wertz and Desiderio, both of whom formerly worked for the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, have a 13-month-old daughter. Two weeks later, Wertz, who now works for an organization called Funders for LGBTQ Issues, posted their email on the Highlights Facebook page:

One of the reasons we appreciate Hello is the diversity represented—families of all races, interracial families and grandparents. We are consistently disappointed, however, in the complete lack of same-sex parents in Hello magazine. I think a lot about the things that create culture—the subtle and not so subtle messages that our kids get about how the world works. Since becoming a parent, I feel keenly aware of the messages kids’ books send to tiny minds.” 

Highlights responded:

For much of our readership, the topic of same-sex families is still new and parents are still learning how to approach it with their children, even the very little ones. We believe that parents know best when their family is ready to open conversation around the topic of same-sex families….We will continue to think deeply about inclusion—specifically how to address it in developmentally appropriate ways for our broad audience.

Well, you can imagine how that went over with homosexuals who will not tolerate any public recognition or expression of views of homoeroticism with which they disagree.

The Highlights Facebook page blew up with angry responses from tolerance-teachers and homo-parents, and once again Highlights tried to mollify the angry hordes, assuring them that because of Highlights’ commitment to diversity, inclusion, corporate evolution, and helping “children become their best selves,” it was just a matter of “‘how’” and “‘when’”—not “‘if’”–Highlights would feature an LGBTQ family.”

Still not good enough.

Non-judgmental Leftists took to the Internet to put forward their best “arguments” against conservatives—that is to say, ad hominem attacks like this one from the website She Knows: “The loathsome One Million Moms calls for Highlights boycott…One Million Moms, an…association of grotesque hate-mongers.”

Maria Guido, senior news editor for the ideologically non-diverse Scary Mommy website, criticizes for its failure to be as comprehensively Leftist as Scary Mommy is on matters related to homoeroticism:

[Highlights magazine’s] first response was laughably offensive. Why? Because it basically said, “we know a certain part of our audience is against gay marriage and we don’t want to lose their money,”… Guess what, Highlights? If people boycott your brand because they’re bigots, that is a sword you have to fall on, as far as the rest of the population of decent, inclusive humans is concerned.  

Yes, all those who believe that the needs of children are best served and their rights best protected when they are raised by mothers and fathers are “bigots” while those who believe homoeroticism is good and moral are “decent, inclusive humans.”

Several days later, Highlights surrendered to enraged Leftist ideologues, issuing this bootlicking, brown-nosing response:

We know that there are many ways to build a family, and that love is the essential “ingredient.” This conversation has helped us see that we can be more reflective of all kinds of families in our publications. We are committed to doing so as we plan future issues.

Leftists are fond of saying that depictions of families headed by same-sex couples are not sexual. Rather, they’re just depictions of love. In so doing, they escape mentioning that the type of love depicted is erotic love. They seek to suggest there are no distinctions between different types of love (hence Macklemore’s jejune song “Same Love”). But in reality, there are different types of love, and some types of loving relationships ought not include sex. Should Highlights magazines depict families in which children are being raised by two brothers in a loving homoerotic relationship?

Leftists often say that because homoerotic relationships and “diverse family structures” that include same-sex parents exist, young children should be exposed to positive images of them. But is it the task of children’s magazines (or public schools) to expose children—including very young children—to every phenomenon that exists? And is it the obligation of children’s magazines (or public schools) to expose children to positive images of every phenomenon that exists?

The argument that children’s educational tools should expose them to homoerotic parental relationships depends on accepting the prior assumption that homoeroticism per se is good. In other words, for children’s magazines (or public schools) to expose children to homoerotic relationships, decision-makers must first conclude that such relationships are morally equivalent to heterosexual relationships. This explains why the staff at Highlights magazines evidently feels no obligation to expose children to positive images of polyamorous relationships and family structures—which also exist and include the “essential ingredient” of love.

Those who know that homoerotic relationships and structures are profoundly immoral, that they deny children their intrinsic rights, and that they undermine human flourishing are left with the challenge of removing their children from contexts in which they will be exposed to body- and soul-destroying ideas and images. And they are obliged to remove from their home resources that promote lies as truth and do so in imagery that appeals to innocent minds.

It’s no longer possible to boycott every business that affirms homosexuality and biological sex-rebellion. That’s why organized, targeted (pun intended) boycotts are important. That said, boycotting Highlights is a low-cost, high-yield endeavor. If every conservative family cancels their subscriptions explaining exactly why, perhaps Highlights management will rethink their capitulation to the increasingly draconian demands of homosexuals. And as you contemplate canceling, know that Leftists are encouraging their cohorts to subscribe in order to support Highlights’ effort to indoctrinate children with pernicious ideas.

If, however, fear of those who place sexual deviance at the center of their identities paralyzes Highlights management, canceling subscriptions remains a high-yield endeavor: It protects the hearts and minds of our little ones from destructive ideas. I agree with Scary Mommy Maria Guido when she says to Highlights, “You don’t get to have it both ways—either lose my money, or lose theirs.”

Perhaps we would be bolder, more tenacious cultural activists if we thought like lesbian activist Kristina Wertz who got this muddied ball rolling:

I think a lot about the things that create culture—the subtle and not so subtle messages that our kids get about how the world works. Since becoming a parent, I feel keenly aware of the messages kids’ books send to tiny minds.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Highlights CEO Kent Johnson via their public relations department to let him know that the decision of Highlights management to expose young children to ideas and images that many find destructive and age-inappropriate compels you to cancel your subscription and/or refrain from purchasing gift subscriptions for your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or friends.