Ellen DeGeneres Fires Back At One Million Moms

Last week, One Million Moms decided Ellen DeGeneres was the perfect target for its new campaign. The conservative group has made its living protesting television networks for airing racy shows and corporations for excluding Christmas, but in what’s perhaps its most hateful goal of all-time, One Million Moms decided to try and get Ellen fired from her job as JC Penney’s spokeswoman.

Had she driven drunk or made some inflammatory statement, the group’s response may have been (somewhat) understandable, but Ellen’s only crime was being a lesbian. In a letter-writing and telephone blitz, the group contacted the retailer and demanded it pick a different voice more representative of traditional families. Thankfully, the company stuck by the fifty-four year old, but the protest has now been widened to include a boycott.

After almost a week of silence, Ellen finally addressed the controversy today, and she did so in her typical semi-serious, semi-light-hearted way. Here’s part of what she had to say on her show…

"They wanted to get me fired, and I'm proud and happy to say that JCPenney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson. Which is great news for me because I also need some new crew socks. I'm really going to clean up with this discount.”

It baffles me that anyone could not smile at a statement like that. After a group of bigots literally tried to get her fired, she still was able to see the humor in it and remain positive. Thankfully, today gave her extra reason to be in a good mood too. A federal appeals court upheld an earlier decision that shot down California’s hateful Proposition 8.

With any luck, this will be the last time Ellen will have to address One Million Moms.

Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.