Ellen DeGeneres' new role as
spokesperson for JCPenney will lead to an increasing number of
lesbians, American Family Association's (AFA) Bryan Fischer claims.
The 54-year-old, openly gay DeGeneres
has been under attack by the AFA group One Million Moms. The group
has called on JCPenney to fire DeGeneres as their spokesperson
because of her sexual orientation.
“By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon,
JCPenney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process
will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful
to them over all these years,” the group said.
“Funny that JCPenney thinks hiring an
open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of
its customers are traditional families.”
(Related: Ellen
DeGeneres calls One Million Moms “haters”; cheers Prop 8 ruling.)
DeGeneres, who came out gay in 1997, is
the host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and is a spokesperson for
CoverGirl and American Express.
In a blog
post titled Bryan Fischer: Why Pro-family Americans should
care about what JCPenney does, Fischer claimed DeGeneres, in her
role as spokesperson for JCPenney, would make young women gay.
“Will America’s young women be just
a bit more likely to experiment with lesbianism now that JCPenney is
mainstreaming it? To any objective observer, the answer must be
yes. Is this a good thing? To any objective observer, the answer
must be no,” Fischer wrote.
“Research has indicated that lesbians
suffer from increased levels of depression, suicidal ideation,
substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases compared to
heterosexual women.”
“Thus what JCPenney has done, by
increasing, even if ever so slightly, the chances that young women
will experiment with this behavior will turn out to be a tragic thing
for some. JCPenney will have to share some culpability for that.”