Christians Boycott The Gap for Not Saying "Christmas" in Ads (Even Though Its Ads Do Use the Word)
The American Family Association, a Christian group, is urging a boycott of The Gap (GPS) and its brands (Old Navy and Banana Republic), because the stores do not use the word "Christmas" in their ads.
It's difficult to know where to start with this nonsense, but how about the fact that Gap does indeed use the word Christmas in this year's campaign? It's right there, on The Gap's web site. The video that opens the site contains this cheerleader-style chant:
2-4-6-8, 'tis the time to liberate. Go Christmas! Go Hanukkah! Go Kwanzaa! ...World Net Daily, a news site folowed by Christians and conservatives, also found "Christmas" in Gap's ads:
WND was able to find one mention of "Christmas" in a broadcast ad which is also featured on its website. It appears near the end of a rap song, the lyrics of which state:
...Gifted like Christmas so I love to rap/We gonna give it to the world peace, love, and Gap.And yet AFA boss Don Wildmon tells WND:
"As hard as we tried," Wildmon said, "AFA could not find a single instance in which Gap-owned stores use the term 'Christmas.' Not a single time! When one Old Navy store manager was asked by AFA if the word Christmas was in his store, he answered, 'We have a lot of Christmas gifts in our stores, but the word Christmas is not used here. Everything is holiday.'What is Wildmon trying to achieve? The boycott suggests that it would be better if The Gap exploited Christmas to the hilt, commercializing it as much as possible in a campaign to rack up sales of sweaters and jeans. Which, obviously, was, er ... Christ's true message.
The other nonsensical outcome of this boycott would be the coercion of a non-Christian organization into a false celebration of Christmas. Which, equally obviously, you can find in the New Testament ... possibly.
And while non-Christians are kidding themselves if they believe that the Dec. 25 federal holiday was created for Hanukkah or Muharram, Wildmon's campaign suggests it would somehow better if clothing retailers did their best to annoy non-Christians as much as possible.
The only possible conclusion: Wildmon and the AFA are atheist stooges whose mission is to make Christians look as ridiculous as possible. Genius!
Image: A Christmas display at a Gap in Japan, via Shack Attack. Hat tip to Brandweek.