The retail giant Target is once again at the center of controversy for another LGBTQ+ product: a “Pride Christmas Nutcracker Figure.”
Target has been the subject of a national boycott because of its “pride collection,” likely contributing to declining sales for the last two fiscal quarters.
“Bring uplifting flair to your holiday decor with this Pride Nutcracker Figurine from Wondershop™,” a description of the product says.
“This charming nutcracker figurine with a light purple beard and hair wears a blue and white jacket with golden trim and rainbow lapels, black and blue dress pants, and a rainbow hat, and it also holds a Pride flag in hand,” it says.
The ornament holds a “progress” pride flag, which features white, pink, and blue stripes representing transgender people. Black and brown stripes represent marginalized people with black or brown skin color.
Conservative and Christian commentators began calling for boycotts following news of Target’s pride merchandise and partnership in May. Calls for a boycott have continued by commentators and online since then.
Some commentators and social media posts criticized Target because of the nutcracker figure, which has been sold in the past, according to Queer News Tonight.
Target waded into controversy in May after it promoted adult women’s-style swimwear intended to help transgender-identifying men conceal their genitals as well as a children’s swim skirt with a tag describing itself as fit for “multiple body types and gender expressions.”
But part of the anger toward Target was stoked by its partnership with a U.K.-based designer who creates items with Satanic imagery.
Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev were also the subject of a boycott this year after the company announced a partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April.
“All Christians and religious need to boycott Target. We need to send a message to these woke companies that choose evil as their marketing tactic. It’s just sick,” said conservative media personality Mercedes Schlapp.
In May, Target released a statement saying that there have been threats made to its staff since releasing its Pride Month collection.
The retailer said that it would be removing certain items “that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”
“Our focus now is on moving forward with our continuing commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community and standing with them as we celebrate Pride Month and throughout the year,” that statement said.
NBC News reported in May that in some stores in the South, pride displays were moved to less visible areas of the shopping center.
Target said that comparable sales declined 5.4% in the second quarter. The company said this month that in its third quarter, comparable sales declined 4.9%.
Target’s stock has taken a significant hit since May, but it had a jump of about 20% over the past five days.
Following its decline in sales during its second quarter, Target CEO Brian Cornell told investors that the financial hit was due to both inflation and “negative guest reaction to our Pride collection,” according to Newsweek.
Target says it has been executing a gay pride agenda for over a decade. The company has published a “Pride Manifesto,” a video that celebrates homosexual relationships and shows couples of the same sex kissing, embracing, and in marriage ceremonies.
Just last year, Target said it would be celebrating Pride Month during the month of June but that the celebration would go “all year long.”
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A young woman holds a pro-life sign during a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. / Joseph Portolano/CNA
Washington D.C., Jun 25, 2023 / 06:40 am (CNA).
Marking the first anniversary of Roe being overturned, a group of pro-life leaders rallied hundreds to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Saturday with the message that they were united around the fight for full, legal protection for the unborn from the moment of conception in all 50 states.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told those gathered on a sunny, hot summer day that while she celebrated the 25 states that have passed strong pro-life laws, “we are in fact living in a divided states of America” where “a person’s location determines if they will survive the abortion gauntlet as we did.”
Hawkins said the country must become “an America where every human being is recognized as the unrepeatable person as they are with equal rights and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed, not because of what state their mother resides in or if they are perceived to be convenient or the circumstances of their conception.”
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Hawkins told CNA that pro-life leaders are uniting around the belief “that every human being is a human person at conception” and that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal justice clauses should be equally applied to persons in the womb.
“At a very minimum if you’re running for federal office, you should be able to acknowledge that abortion is a federal issue,” she said. “We want to see every presidential contender join with us to acknowledge what is so clearly written in the Fourteenth Amendment: that all human beings are human persons and deserve equal protection of our laws.”
Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called the Fourteenth Amendment “one of the most beautiful notes in our national song” and lamented that “when it comes to preborn children we have failed to extend these protections.”
Speaking at a rally in front of of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children.”. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Rose called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children. It is inconceivable that we would selectively deny these rights to one group of human beings solely based on their location: the womb.”
Republican presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently called on his fellow GOP presidential candidates to join him in backing a “minimum” nationwide 15-week abortion limit, made an appearance at the rally.
“As we celebrate this anniversary, let us here resolve that we will work and we will pray as never before to advance the cause of life in the laws of the land in every state in America. That we will support women in crisis pregnancies with resources and support for their care, for the unborn, and for the newborn as never before,” Pence said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
“We stand for the babies and their unalienable right to life,” he said, pledging that he and his family “will never rest and never relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-life America, shared words of advice for the growing list of 2024 presidential candidates: “Get your act together. Figure out what you’re for and advance it. Don’t wait,” she urged.
“We have consensus in this country,” she added. “Start with that and be the president you’re called to be in justice and love for moms and justice and love for their babies.” Consistent Gallup polling shows that the majority of Americans would prefer to limit abortion to the first three months of pregnancy.
There were many young people in the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, including Katriel Nyman, a 17-year-old from Washington state who is with Students for Life Tri-Cities. She told CNA that it was “really encouraging to see a bunch of people who believe in rights from conception.”
She said she’d “like to see more pro-lifers continue to persevere through this” post-Dobbs fight because “even if abortion isn’t legal in your state, you should be fighting for the rights of infants that are soon to be born in other states.”
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, holds a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that reads “We have dignified the children of Adam,” at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023. Lauretta Brown/CNA
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, held a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that read “We have dignified the children of Adam.”
She told CNA that she wanted to make her voice heard as a Muslim who believes, based on her faith, that abortion is wrong in most cases. She said many Muslims followers feel, as she does, that life begins “in the first couple weeks after conception.”
Munshi said that in the year since the Dobbs decision, “a lot of people that I know who don’t have strong opinions on abortion have been coming out either in favor or against” abortion. She sees it as valuable that there’s more discourse about the abortion issue and people are “coming to more conclusions for themselves as opposed to maybe rhetoric that they’ve seen in the news or rhetoric that they feel has been a part of their political platform.”
Jessica Newell, a Catholic student who is interning with Live Action and entering her third year at Coastal Carolina University, told CNA that “it’s so important for people who are indoctrinated by this culture to learn the truth about biology and the truth about God and that they’re made in the image of God.”
She emphasized that the pro-life movement still has so much to do and part of that work is “letting people know that they’re loved, that is a big step in changing the culture to a culture of life.”
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stands alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stood at the rally alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, and a sign which read “Babies survive abortions. I am one of them.”
“This was a very personal thing for Roe to be overturned,” she told CNA, “It is a day that we can celebrate, but it has not been a chance to pause, take our breath, it has been a time of continuing to hit the ground running.”
In her work heading the Abortion Survivors Network, Ohden said that since the Dobbs decision she’s heard from “more women than ever reaching out to us after their chemical abortions have failed.” She said it’s important to reach moms who are vulnerable to chemical abortions which make up the majority of abortions in the country.
Ohden said that since Dobbs the pro-life movement “has continued to be the side that is providing resources and support whether it’s in communities, at the state level, pushing for federal policy that supports mothers and children and families in a greater way.”
Her daughter Olivia said it was “amazing” to be at the rally with her mom and called the issue an emotional one because “people like my mom should be protected no matter who they are, where they are.”
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8 Comments
Have not bought a thing at Target in more than a year. Their public pandering to this pride stuff I think is objectionable.They may sell a few of these nutcrackers. But it should be with the knowledge that they have lost many other customers, who are tired of having this stuff shoved in our face. Its not hard to shop elsewhere. Its said the company has taken a financial beating because of many flash mobs shoplifting with impunity. But is that the whole story? I guess most of the company higher-ups can not bring themselves to admit the boycott against the store has affected them to at least some degree. Their guy Cornell was at least up front about that. Maybe they should remember the fate of the Linens and Things store when they attacked Trump, Mike Lindell of My Pillow and Conservatism, what happened to Bud Light, and what is also happening now to Disney. Most of us are not interested in having alternate lifestyles shoved on us.
I care for the same reason I care about drag queens in public libraries, or in parades, or sexuality being pushed on children in a mandatory school setting. I wont support it with my vote or my cash. Sexually explicit materials once upon a time were delegated to red light districts and unsavory behind the counter stores. Its was to shore up public morality and to protect innocent children from exposure to such things.. That has not changed just because some extreme leftists have decided this is the next cool thing. There is no reason on Earth why it is suddenly OK to expose impressionable children to this garbage. I imagine you would not be so bland if people were trying to push and sell Nazi materials or racially charged materials in stores. The fewer restraints there are on inappropriate individual behaviors, the more our civilization will decline. Every society must have standards. Protecting it’s children would be among the most basic one. Anti-semitism, the legal use of mind altering drugs, gang shootings, flash mobs of shoplifters,the sexual grooming and mutilation of children, are NOT ok. When our stores begin to sell merchandise which suggests it is, it gives tacit approval to morally bankrupt points of view. One day we will all have to explain the choices we made to God. That should be interesting.
Have not bought a thing at Target in more than a year. Their public pandering to this pride stuff I think is objectionable.They may sell a few of these nutcrackers. But it should be with the knowledge that they have lost many other customers, who are tired of having this stuff shoved in our face. Its not hard to shop elsewhere. Its said the company has taken a financial beating because of many flash mobs shoplifting with impunity. But is that the whole story? I guess most of the company higher-ups can not bring themselves to admit the boycott against the store has affected them to at least some degree. Their guy Cornell was at least up front about that. Maybe they should remember the fate of the Linens and Things store when they attacked Trump, Mike Lindell of My Pillow and Conservatism, what happened to Bud Light, and what is also happening now to Disney. Most of us are not interested in having alternate lifestyles shoved on us.
Why does this article use the language of the “LGBetc.” lobby?
See The Catholic Thing, Nov. 18.
If you don’t like the gay pride nutcracker,then don’t buy one. I still shop at Target and will continue to do so. Why do you care?
Perhaps thou art attracted by the artful cleverness of the double entendre–a homosexual nut cracker.
I care for the same reason I care about drag queens in public libraries, or in parades, or sexuality being pushed on children in a mandatory school setting. I wont support it with my vote or my cash. Sexually explicit materials once upon a time were delegated to red light districts and unsavory behind the counter stores. Its was to shore up public morality and to protect innocent children from exposure to such things.. That has not changed just because some extreme leftists have decided this is the next cool thing. There is no reason on Earth why it is suddenly OK to expose impressionable children to this garbage. I imagine you would not be so bland if people were trying to push and sell Nazi materials or racially charged materials in stores. The fewer restraints there are on inappropriate individual behaviors, the more our civilization will decline. Every society must have standards. Protecting it’s children would be among the most basic one. Anti-semitism, the legal use of mind altering drugs, gang shootings, flash mobs of shoplifters,the sexual grooming and mutilation of children, are NOT ok. When our stores begin to sell merchandise which suggests it is, it gives tacit approval to morally bankrupt points of view. One day we will all have to explain the choices we made to God. That should be interesting.
Go woker, go broker. It doesn’t seem Target has figured this out yet.
Target learned nothing (including Bud Light) over the summer.
I don’t believe for a minute that Target is acting blindly.