SOPA Can Suck It

If you're still unclear about what's happening on the internet today, check out these links and get on board the anti-SOPA/PIPA bandwagon.

Google: End Piracy, Not Liberty

Wikipedia's SOPA/PIPA Initiative

The Super PIPA/SOPA Action/Info Reference Guide

Mother Jones: The Story Behind the SOPA Blackout

Stop American Censorship

Mashable: Why SOPA Is Dangerous

Ladies of Liberty: Pre-Valentine Party

As you may already know, we have been participating with an organization called Soldiers' Angels by sending letters and care packages to deployed servicemembers. We thought we'd give everyone a little update of how things are going and give you information on how you can get involved!

The Ladies of Liberty program focuses specifically on the needs of deployed female servicemembers and makes special efforts to support and encourage them. They assist with supplies for their unique health and hygiene needs and help them experience a few "pampering" moments to rejuvenate themselves, even in the environment of war. They collect items such as feminine hygiene materials, vitamins, body scrub, facial masks, shampoo, conditioner, brushes, books, magazines and DVDs.

We recently hosted a Cards for the Troops Pre-Valentine's Day party to collect and create valentine's cards for female servicemembers deployed overseas. (Yes, we know it's a little early for Valentine's Day, but it can take several weeks for mail to reach the troops sometimes.) The party was a huge success and we now have over 40 handmade cards!

There are a lot of ways to get involved with Soldiers' Angels. We hope you'll all consider signing up or helping out. Soldiers' Angels is a non-political group... so it doesn't matter how you feel about war to support the men and women risking their lives in it.

Happy very early Valentine's Day!

Get Your Santorum Sweater Vest Today!

Those of you who have been torturing yourselves by following the race for the Republican presidential nomination might have noticed that Rick Santorum has been sporting some snazzy sweater vests on the campaign trail lately. Well, you'll be thrilled to learn that if you act fast, you can get your very own official Santorum sweater vest from his campaign's website. Check it out:



Before today I was not aware that the sweater vest was the perfect symbol of conservative solidarity. The more you know, huh? Aside from the fact that you can get sweater vests anywhere for a lot less than $100...and that Santorum's campaign will be long dead by the time you wait four to six weeks for delivery of your Santorumvest...oh yeah, and that Rick Santorum is a raging homophobe and an anti-choice misogynist douchebag, we think this is an awesome deal. Order yours today!

The AFA's Naughty or Nice List: Foot Locker

Our debunking of the American Family Association's annual Naughty or Nice retailer list continues today with Foot Locker. (If you're not familiar with this list or why we write about it every year, see our intro post here.) The AFA has put Foot Locker on their red list this year, which means they consider them to be a company that is "against Christmas" and that "may use "Christmas" sparingly in a single or unique product description, but as a company, does not recognize it". Let's investigate that.

Foot Locker uses the tagline "Celebrate Kicksmas" for their holiday advertising. Here's a screenshot from their website:



They also have a Kicksmas calendar that lists different deals and events and product introductions for the holiday season.



Kicksmas...hmmm, this seems to be a play on words of some kind. But which popular winter holiday could they possibly be referencing? Maybe that vaguely tree-shaped and star-topped object made of shoes in the image up above holds some kind of clue. Hey, you know what, you guys? I think they just might be talking about Christmas!

I understand that the AFA complains about stores saying "happy holidays" because they feel that the retailers are trying to make money from Christmas shoppers while refusing to specifically acknowledge the holiday that they're shopping for. (I don't agree with it, but I understand it.) But that's clearly not what's happening here. "Kicksmas" just seems like an attempt at a clever reference to their products, not to censor the word Christmas.

The AFA may feel like this isn't the best way to reference Christmas since Foot Locker is literally taking 'Christ' out by changing it to Kicksmas. But their red list is supposed to be for retailers that are against Christmas and refuse to acknowledge it, not stores who just happen to acknowledge it in a way that doesn't earn them an AFA gold star. We're rooting for Foot Locker to at least get bumped up to the yellow list by next year. Merry Kicksmas!

The AFA's Naughty or Nice List: 1-800-Flowers

Our efforts to debunk that American Family Association's annual Naughty or Nice list of retailers continues today with 1-800-Flowers.com. (If you're not familiar with this list or why we write about it every year, see our intro post here.) The AFA has put 1-800-Flowers on the yellow list this year, which means that according to them it's a company that is "marginal on Christmas" and "refers to Christmas infrequently, or in a single advertising medium, but not in others".

We've been taking screenshots of 1-800-Flowers.com since Thanksgiving. Take a look and judge for yourself:



















So we can all clearly see how much 1-800-Flowers marginalizes Christmas, right? Seriously, I'd love to hear an explanation from the AFA about why they ended up on the yellow list, because aside from changing their name to 1-800-Christmas.com, I don't know what more they could possibly do to show that they're a pro-Christmas company. It's just one more piece of evidence that the AFA's annual protest is stupid on every level.

When will poor Victoria's Secret get off the AFA Naughty List?

Every year we have lots of fun writing about the American Family Association's "Naughty or Nice" list... and debunking all of their claims. It's become sort of a holiday tradition over here at Evil Slutopia.

Just to recap for those of you who don't already know about the AFA's list, every holiday season they organize a boycott of companies that don't use the word "Christmas" enough in their December advertising. They've compiled a list of national retailers and organized them into color-coded categories for easy boycotting.

Color Code:
GREEN: Company uses the term "Christmas" on a regular basis, we consider that company Christmas-friendly.
YELLOW: Company refers to Christmas infrequently, or in a single advertising medium, but not in others.
RED: Company may use "Christmas" sparingly in a single or unique product description, but as a company, does not recognize it.

Every year they promise that they're going to "continually update the list" but it never really seems that they do any actual research to update it. Poor Victoria's Secret has repeatedly been on the red list of anti-Christmas companies even though they're not very anti-Christmas at all.

Obviously, we don't agree with the AFA's belief that "Christmas" must be recognized by retailers and non-religious companies. We much prefer the all-inclusive "holiday" to "Christmas". But if the AFA is going to take a stand, they should at least do the research to back up their claims. Now, we could understand the AFA not loving Victoria's Secret for other reasons, but they're off base on this one but every year they refuse to update the list. (Check out our coverage from 2010 and 2009.) So once again we will prove why...

Let's take a look at a few screenshots from their website, as well as a few photos from their current catalogs and you tell us if they're "anti-Christmas":

 

Clearly this is a company that hates Christmas, right? You can see how they refuse to recognize this very special holiday and avoid using the term 'Christmas' at all costs.  Whatever, AFA. If you're going to take the step of calling for some of these companies to be boycotted, we don't think it's too much to ask that you at least get you research right before you do.

We suspect that Victoria's Secret is on the list for reasons that have very little to do with their Christmas advertising and much more to do with the fact that they sell sexy lingerie. Just look at how wrong they were about the company that owns Victoria's Secret, Limited Brands last year. This year they've moved them to the red list, but Bath and Body works is still in the yellow. Do they not realize that Limited Brands owns both companies and doesn't sell anything themselves, therefore doesn't have any individual advertising?

WTF, AFA?

The AFA's War on the War on Christmas Begins!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! The American Family Association is again leading the charge in the War on Christmas by putting out their annual Naughty or Nice list of retailers. Blogging about this list is one of our favorite ESC holiday traditions, so we're excited to tackle this year's offering from the AFA.

If you're not familiar with the Naughty or Nice list, here's how the AFA describes it:

AFA's 2011 listing of top retailers and how they recognize Christmas

Color Code:
GREEN: Company uses the term "Christmas" on a regular basis, we consider that company Christmas-friendly.
YELLOW: Company refers to Christmas infrequently, or in a single advertising medium, but not in others.
RED: Company may use "Christmas" sparingly in a single or unique product description, but as a company, does not recognize it.

Criteria - AFA reviewed up to four areas to determine if a company was "Christmas-friendly" in their advertising: print media (newspaper inserts), broadcast media (radio/television), website and/or personal visits to the store. If a company's ad has references to items associated with Christmas (trees, wreaths, lights, etc.), it was considered as an attempt to reach "Christmas" shoppers.

If a company has items associated with Christmas, but did not use the word "Christmas," then the company is considered as censoring "Christmas."

Note: AFA does not list local or regional companies. Only nationally-recognized companies will be listed. This list only reflects a company's "Christmas" advertising and does not take into account other corporate policies AFA may not agree with.

And if you're not familiar with our reasons for writing about this list every year, here's a summary:

-There's nothing wrong with stores using 'happy holidays' instead of 'merry Christmas', and the "war on Christmas" exists only in the minds of people like Bill O'Reilly and the AFA. Christmas is celebrated openly pretty much everywhere in this country, but there are many other holidays that are also celebrated at this time of year and there's nothing wrong with stores choosing to use an inclusive term like 'happy holidays'. It's really not a big deal, as we said when we first wrote about this back in 2009:

Yes, the fact that some stores choose to use a general holiday greeting that applies to everyone is a horrible nightmare. Sometimes when I'm out shopping for gifts and someone in a store wishes me "happy holidays", I find myself losing my moral and spiritual bearings and beginning to question who I am as a person and reevaluating the meaning of life, and then I have to get a lemonade from Auntie Anne's and sit on a bench outside of Socks Appeal until I feel better. It's a challenging experience.

-Buying stuff at a store really has nothing to do with the true meaning of Christmas anyway, so we don't see why Christian groups like the AFA spend so much time and effort every year on trying to force stores to be as "pro-Christmas" as possible. Someone attempted to raise this point on the facebook page of the One Million Moms (a division of the AFA), and this was the OMM's reply:

Teaching your family the real meaning of CHRISTmas is extremely important. Since the retail stores would like to profit from those who do buy Christmas gifts then they need to advertise what it is we are actually celebrating. Christmas, not Holiday. People do not buy Winter Solstice gifts, etc.

Ah, CHRISTmas, I see what you did there. It's pretty sad that they're so desperate to believe that there's a "war" on their holiday that they're reduced to obvious nonsense like claiming that only Christians buy and exchange gifts during the winter.

-The AFA uses this list as a way of trying to make money for themselves. Every year their action alerts on this topic are accompanied by sales pitches for their Christmas buttons and signs. This year they've also taken it a step further by listing the AFA Online Store as the first retailer on the green list.

-There are way more retailers on the green list than there are on the yellow and red lists combined, and it seems to grow more lopsided each year, which would make most rational people question just how big of a problem this really is. The green list has 54 retailers, the yellow list has 10, and the red list has 14. And, like last year, some of the entries on the yellow and red lists seem to be there just to make those lists look longer. For example, Limited Brands is listed on both the yellow and red lists for no apparent reason even though it shouldn't be listed at all because the retailers owned by Limited Brands are already listed separately. They also include stores like supermarkets and office supply stores that wouldn't exactly be at the top of most people's holiday shopping lists anyway. They also break their own rules about only listing "nationally recognized companies" by including regional stores like Belk and Meijer, smaller web or catalog-only retailers like Uncommon Goods, and stores I've never heard of in my life like Maurice's and Scheels Sporting Goods.

Finally, there's the fact that they're actually wrong about many of the stores that they put on their yellow and red lists being 'anti-Christmas'. So even if we were to overlook all of the reasons that a list like this is misguided and unnecessary and pretend that it's a totally legitimate idea, the execution totally sucks. If the AFA is going to encourage their followers to boycott these retailers during the holiday season, we feel that they should at least make some attempt to make a list that's accurate based on their own criteria. Every year they fail to do so, so every year we help them out by fact-checking their list. We like to think of it as our holiday gift to them.

Our posts about specific retailers on the 2011 Naughty or Nice list are coming very soon, but if you'd like to revisit the wars of Christmas past in the meantime, here are a few of our favorite posts from the last few years:


-Debunking the AFA's Christmas Boycott: Bass Pro Shops - Because stores that offer their customers free photos with Santa are totally out to marginalize Christmas. This post is from 2009 and they were moved to the green list in 2010, which we take full credit for. You're welcome, Bass Pro Shops.

-Debunking the AFA's Christmas Boycott and Our Long National Nightmare is Over: The AFA's Gap/Old Navy Boycott Ends - Gap and Old Navy are favorite targets of the AFA, but they really lost it when Old Navy ran an ad that mentioned Christmas along with other winter holidays including the Winter Solstice, which as everyone knows is a "pagan holiday...celebrated by Wiccans who practice witchcraft!" Oh, the horror. Of course, the AFA is just fine with all of the current Christmas traditions that were 'borrowed' from the pagans by early Christians.

-Debunking the AFA's Naughty or Nice List: Limited Brands - Our attempt to figure out how the AFA can be so fixated on Limited Brands and so wrong about them at the same time.

One Million Moms Protest Macy's For Firing Transphobic Employee

In the latest action alert from the One Million Moms, they're taking a break from obsessing over the imaginary "war on Christmas" to protest Macy's for firing a Christian employee. Here's what happened, according to them:

Macy's fires Christian for protecting women's dressing rooms from cross-dresser

Macy's has fired a Christian woman for refusing to violate her religious beliefs. Her offense? She prevented a man dressed as a woman from entering the women’s dressing room.

According to Liberty Counsel, Natalie Johnson says she saw the young man walk out of the women's fitting room and politely told him that he could not go back in because it was for women only. The cross-dressing young man claimed that he is a "female." Johnson said that he was wearing make-up and girl's clothing, but clearly he was a male. The cross-dresser was accompanied by five other individuals.

The group argued with expletives that Macy's is LGBT-friendly, to which Johnson replied that Macy's is also non-discriminatory toward religion, and that it would go against her religious beliefs to lie that he was a woman or compromise with homosexuality. The group then demanded to speak with a manager.

Johnson’s boss referred her to Macy's LGBT policy which allows "transgender" people to change in any dressing room they want.

The manager demanded that she comply with the LGBT policies or lose her job. Johnson refused to go against her sincerely held religious beliefs and was terminated from her job.

Macy's has essentially opened women's dressing rooms to every man. The LGBT agenda has become the theater of the absurd.

We found another source that confirmed the basic details of this story, minus the OMM's transphobia. It also included some quotes from Natalie Johnson, like this gem:

Asked if she would handle the situation the same way if given another chance, Johnson said she would.

“There are no transgenders in the world. A guy can dress up as a woman all he wants. That’s still not going to make you a woman,” Johnson said. “If you’re a man going into the women’s fitting room, I will kindly escort you to the men’s fitting room.”

Obviously we side with Macy's on this one. Johnson is free to personally disagree with the dressing room policy if she wants to, but if she's going to continue to be rude to customers who are doing nothing wrong and refuse to comply with the policy even after her manager tells her to, then Macy's was right to fire her.

The OMM's claim that Johnson was "protecting" the dressing room is offensive and ridiculous. If I'm a woman trying on women's clothes in the women's dressing room, why would I need to be protected from another woman doing the exact same thing just because one of us happens to be a trans woman? (If anything, a trans woman would be more likely to run into trouble with bigoted shoppers if she was forced to use the men's dressing room by a bigoted employee like Johnson.) The implication that all trans people are potential predators, or that lots of men are going to start exploiting this policy and dressing up as women to get access to the women's dressing room, or that men who really are predators are currently being thwarted by dressing room policies in the first place...well, to use the OMM's word, the entire thing is absurd.

So far it seems that Macy's is standing by their policy and has no plans to rehire Johnson:

Macy’s senior vice president of corporate communications and external affairs Jim Sluzewski issued the following statement:

“Macy’s is very proud of our philosophy of diversity and inclusion, and we welcome all customers into our stores. This includes customers of all races, ethnicities, ages, genders, faith traditions, countries of origins and lifestyle preferences. We strive to ensure that each customer is able to shop in a discrimination-free environment.”

The OMM was nice enough to gather some contact info for Macy's, so if you'd like to counteract their transphobic protest by contacting Macy's and thanking them for having and enforcing an LGBT-friendly dressing room policy, here it is:

Email Macy's President Terry Lundgren and urge him to immediately apologize to Natalie, reinstate her position with Macy's and put safeguards in place to protect women customers from men who would enter their dressing areas.

IMPORTANT! Personally call Macy's headquarters at 513-579-7000 and express your outrage at this injustice to female employees and customers.

Other numbers to call:

Jim Sluzewski, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications - 513-579-7764
Macy's Media Relations - Julie Strider, 646-429-5213

Terry J. Lundgren, President
Macy's
7 West Seventh Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Primary Phone: 513-579-7000
Secondary Phone: 513-579-7764
Fax: 513-579-7555
E-Mail: Terry J. Lundgren, Macy's

We also looked up the contact info for the store where this incident happened if anyone wants to contact the store management directly:

Macy's San Antonio Rivercenter
151 East Bowie Street
San Antonio, TX 78205
210-554-6850