Hate Group Assails Ritz Ad for Promoting 'The Transgender Lifestyle'

The American Family Association has gone crackers over an LGBTQ-inclusive Ritz commercial.

The right-wing organization, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has launched a petition threatening to boycott the brand over its "Where There's Love, There's Family" campaign.

The ad includes a scene of a gender-nonconforming person applying makeup and another of an LGBTQ+ holiday gathering. "At Ritz, we believe everyone should feel like they belong. That's why this holiday, we're encouraging people to rethink what it means to be family," the campaign's site reads.

Naturally, the AFA took offense at the image of a "man putting on lipstick like a woman and effeminately clinging to another man."

"RITZ Crackers is attempting to normalize the transgender lifestyle by airing a commercial that has absolutely nothing to do with selling crackers," the petition read, adding, "The company's goal is to redefine family as something other than God's biblical design for gender and sexuality."

AFA also took issue with the campaign's partnership with the It Gets Better Project, an organization it described as an "LGBTQ+ program directed at promoting homosexuality and transgenderism to youth."

In fact, the It Gets Better Project helps create content that supports and educates LGBTQ+ young people, as opposed to the AFA's attempts to harm them with disinformation. The petition includes a quotation from Dr. Michael Brown, a Christian radio host and proponent of the discredited practice of conversion therapy.

As of the time of this article's publishing, the AFA's petition against Ritz has accrued over 35,000 signatures. Online petitions are a common tactic of the organization, which is also the parent group of One Million Moms, a frequent boycotter of pro-LGBTQ+ brands.

Revisit the beauty of the Ritz holiday commercial below.