DAVE ROSS

Ross: No culture wars this Christmas, but we did get a skirmish

Dec 16, 2019, 8:23 AM | Updated: Dec 17, 2019, 8:06 am

Zola, Christmas...

A controversial Zola ad that ran on the Hallmark Channel. (Zola, YouTube)

(Zola, YouTube)

There seems to be no major culture war over Christmas this year. But we do have a little culture skirmish over a TV ad.

“I, Eva wonder if our guests would be here on time… and I Taylor would pick Zola to have and to host our wedding website,” a pair of brides promise each other at the alter.

This is an ad for an online company called Zola which helps couples set up custom web sites for weddings.

Zola was started by two women in 2013. And most of their ads show straight couples, but in this particular ad, the newlyweds are both women.

When it ran on the Hallmark Channel, a group called “One Million Moms” complained that they didn’t want their kids getting ideas. So Hallmark pulled the ad, and then Zola decided to pull all of its other ads, and gay rights groups announced a boycott of Hallmark.

And so welcome to the latest culture skirmish.

I suppose this ad would be a little jarring popping up in the middle of  “Christmas at Dollywood.”

But Zola certainly ran weirder ads than this, like the ad featuring the talking plastic cake-toppers. Two rabbits sitting on a wedding cake:

“Hey guys, we use Zola too! We made a honeymoon fund and went to Hawaii!”

Plastic cake rabbits planning a Hawaiian honeymoon? What kind of a world would that be?

Yet not a single complaint. So far.

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