JC Penney Includes Gay Dads for Father's Day

The JC Penney June advertising booklet features a real-life gay couple and their children.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

June 01 2012 7:21 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

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JC Penney, which stood up to right-wing pressure to retain Ellen DeGeneres as spokeswoman, is being even more LGBT-inclusive by featuring two real-life gay dads in its June ad booklet in honor of Father's Day.

The booklet, being mailed to customers and also available at the JC Penney website, has a picture of gay couple Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children, Claire and Mason, and copy reading, "What makes Dad so cool? He's the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver -- all rolled into one. Or two."

Jcpennylesbiansx400 In its May flier, the retailer featured lesbian moms for Mother's Day, with women identified as Wendi and Maggie, both wearing wedding bands, pictured with their two daughters.

The gay dads, predictably, raised the ire of the antigay group One Million Moms. A post on the Million Moms website says JC Penney "is continuing down the same path of promoting sin in their advertisements." It urges consumers to return the mailers, unsubscribe from JC Penney solicitations, and close their charge accounts with the retailer.