A conservative Christian group’s attempted boycott of Oreo over its support of the LGBTQI+ community has gloriously backfired online.
Earlier this month, cookie brand Oreo, which is owned by Mendelez International, kicked off LGBTQI+ history month with a partnership with non-profit PFLAG—an organisation of parents, families and allies in support of LGBTQI+ people—to release Oreo Rainbow Cookies.
This came alongside the moving ‘OREO Proud Parent’, a short film about the journey of a father’s acceptance of his daughter’s sexuality and relationship, which was the work of creative agency 360i and director Cole Webley from Sanctuary Films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpfLklSG2dQ&feature=emb_logo
It was widely praised, across social media and the press. However, it has been met with disdain by conservative US group ‘One Million Moms’, an online ministry of the American Family Association.
Why? Because Oreo’s parent company is trying to “indoctrinate” children by “supporting the homosexual agenda” instead of “remaining neutral in the cultural war”, in a move that the group’s sole staff member, director Monica Cole, claims is “just bad business.”
The group (which doesn’t have one million users), LGBTQ Nation reports, also wants its readers to pledge not to buy any more of Mondelez’s products, like belVITA, Chips Ahoy!, Sour Patch Kids, and Wheat Thins, which are produced by subsidiary Nabisco.
In a post titled ‘Oreo and PFLAG Working Together to Indoctrinate Children’ the group also calls for supporters to sign a petition, which the association claims has received over 18,000 signatures so far.
The internet, however, is having none of this, with social media users flooding the conservative group’s now closed Facebook page.
One commenter said: “What hateful horrible people you must be. You wouldn’t be telling them to remain ‘neutral’ if they agreed with you. Don’t be hypocritical. I plan to give them [Oreo] LOTS of my money if for no other reason than because of this commercial!”
Another wrote: “I just bought, a bag of Oreos and donated to the Trevot Project in your name! Thank you for bringing this wonderful commercial to me attention!”
Ellen DeGeneres, a frequent target of the group, once joked that it must be “rounding to the nearest million, and I get that”, referring to the fact that the website, despite its name, is not in the top one million websites on the internet.
However, perhaps the person who said it best was The Washington Post’s Colbert I. King, in his article, ‘The latest sheer idiocy from conservative homophobes: Boycotting Oreos’:
“Created more than 100 years ago, Oreo is a delicious cookie that can and will survive verbal abuse from homophobes and creators of put-downs for reasons having nothing to do with its taste.
“I haven’t tried a Rainbow Oreo, but you know something, One Million Moms? You bet I will.”
