The conservative anti-LGBTQ hate organization known as One Million Moms is at it again, this time protesting a TV commercial from the bedding company Avocado Green Mattress, which features a number of couples relaxing on their mattresses, including what the group considers an “offensive” lesbian couple.
The Advocate’s Trudy Ring reported that the “virulently homophobic and transphobic group is outraged over the commercial for Avocado Green Mattress, which portrays opposite-sex couples as well as same-sex ones snuggling on the organic mattress, plus scenes of parents and children.”
In the commercial, a voiceover says, “At Avocado, we believe love is pure, honest, committed — and above all, natural. It inspires everything we do, from the natural, organic materials we use to our commitment to sustainability. Because with enough love, we can change the world.”
According to Ring, “the use of the words ‘pure’ and ‘natural’ in connection with same-sex love was too much for the Million Moms, an offshoot of the American Family Association (which has also been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center).”
A statement against the commercial on the organization’s website reads, “Avocado Mattress should be ashamed of its commercial for attempting to normalize sin by featuring same-sex couples in bed together. There is nothing pure or natural about homosexuality.”
The site continues its hate-filled tirade, proclaiming that “promoting same-sex relationships has nothing to do with marketing the product. Yet, Avocado wants to make it clear where the company stands on this controversial topic, instead of remaining neutral in the culture war.”
One Million Moms also claims LGBTQ relationships are a “perversion,” saying Avocado’s commercial should not be allowed to air “during family viewing time.”
A petition on the website asking for support against Avocado and the company’s commercial so far has fewer than 15,000 signatures. However, those relatively meager numbers make sense; according to the website Truth or Fiction, the group has fewer than 100,000 active members or followers, despite the namesake.
In 2019, GLAAD also reported that the supposed behemoth of a group only has one full-time employee — making them far less of a substantial player in the fight against LGBTQ rights and equality than their name promises.
“One Million Moms has been around for about 10 years, campaigning against positive portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in media as well as anything else it considers offensive,” Ring reported. “It hasn’t had a lot of successes. It lambasted brief portrayals of same-sex couples or crushes in the Disney films Toy Story 4 and Beauty and the Beast (2017), for instance, but that didn’t keep the films from taking in more than $1 billion each at the box office.”
After the group took on the Hallmark Channel for running a commercial featuring a same-sex kiss between two women during one of its holiday movies in 2019, Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, told The Advocate that despite all of its repeated and ongoing bluster, the group “hasn’t been able to purge the airwaves of gay characters.”
“[One Million Moms] promotes a lot of anti-gay bigotry,” he said, “but they’re not having the impact they want to have.”
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