Memo to One Million Moms: Timing is everything. The conservative group, a unit of the American Family Association, is once again taking aim at JCPenney. Not content with being slapped down by the retailer after taking offense over its selection of spokesperson Ellen DeGeneres, the organization is now urging members to protest a new catalog that features a female couple and their daughter under the headline "Freedom of Expression." On its site, OMM tells people to "call, or visit, your local store manager. Local managers are more likely to listen to your concerns and pass them along to the corporate office." That strategy is badly flawed. The struggling marketer has begun laying off managers as part of a huge nationwide reduction in workforce. And I'm thinking the haggard, overworked, terrified-they'll-be-canned-next supervisors who remain won't give a flying fig-leaf when some flighty righties show up to grouse. Those managers might not be inclined to turn the other cheek—and some evangelical mothers could have hell to pay.
↧