Against Gay Eggs

It's true - one of the reasons I'm covering this story is that you don't get a lot of opportunities to use headlines that involve anything as ridiculous as gay eggs. But this also is an article about evangelical censorship advocacy group One Million Moms, an organization that I've covered before that is better described as "A Couple Thousand Crazy People."

Groups like One Million Moms are basically the tip of the spear (so to speak) for those Poor Oppressed Christians who are "oppressed" by the mere existence of gay people, trans people, atheists, non-Christians, and even Christians from denominations other than their own. There's no compromising with them because they can't possibly be expected to coexist with even a single opinion, belief, or identity dissenting from their own.

The latest dumb outrage from the group is over a commercial for Cadbury Creme Eggs that briefly shows a gay couple. As the article points out, the commercial in question only airs on British television and One Million Moms is an American group. So the only way for their members to see it and be offended by it is for other members of the group to send it to them along with breathless condemnations of how awful it is.

The ad shows people eating the chocolate Easter candy in various ways. But the gay couple who appear in the commercial for six seconds, they say, are “graphic and disturbing.” Real-life couple Callum Sterling and Dale Moran went viral this month after they were featured in a Cadbury Cream Egg commercial. The two men share one of the chocolate treats as other people demonstrate other ways to eat the confection.

Monica Cole, the perpetually perturbed head of the group, sent a breathless email alert to her decidedly-less-than a million followers alerting them of the chocolate commercial that describes the men as “disgusting” and “gross.” The group uses the words by attributing them to random “Christians and non-Christians” who have commented on the internet. The alert also quotes a far-right columnist who compares the men to dogs.

“This video is graphic and offensive,” Cole warns right after including a link to the video. Christians who enjoy the yearly sugary confection should be upset “how the company celebrates the risen Savior,” Cole advises. Easter eggs are a leftover symbol of spring from the original pagan holidays that Easter replaced on the calendar. They have nothing to do with the crucifixion.

Can we officially declare that One Million Moms has jumped the shark at this point? I think we can. Outrage over media presented in a totally different country involving something as common these days as a gay couple has to be an insipid ploy to drum up funds and remain relevant. At least the lesbian yogurt commercial they were railing against in 2015 aired in the United States. Having to look overseas to find something to make a fuss over is just sad.

I mean, what are they going to do, lobby the BBC? I expect as Americans they won't be taken very seriously if they try. But that's probably not even the point. As same-sex marriage has become more common all over the United States, it really takes effort to be outraged by what other people do in their own relationships that have nothing to do with you at all.

The fact that they are having to do it all shows just how weak their "movement" (which it never really was) has become. They need those eyeballs to gin up donations, and they need the outrage - especially dumb outrage - to get those views.