Over the past two or three years especially, I’ve noticed a real shift in advertising here in America. A lot of companies are trying harder to be lowkey “woke” with their television commercials, even if their corporate culture is the opposite of woke. There just seems to be so much more visual representation and inclusion, with more black, Asian and Hispanic families represented, more multiracial families, and more same-sex couples represented. It’s a good thing, frankly, and I’m happy to see that few people complain about inclusion and representation at this point. Except as it turns out, all of those bigots, homophobes and racists were watching the Hallmark Channel and their lives were destroyed when Hallmark aired some Zola commercials featuring a (GASP) wedding between two women. Here’s one of the ads:

This is just a reminder that the wedding industrial complex is so happy to direct advertising to the LGBTQ demographic. Zola would love to make bigger inroads into the LGBTQ community, as would most advertisers and corporations. But… some people are still dumb as f–k and so thousands of people signed a petition and demanded that the Hallmark Channel protect the sanctity of their churchy TV movies, and the Hallmark Channel caved and pulled four of the Zola ads featuring gay peeps. From the New York Times:

The Hallmark Channel pulled four TV ads featuring brides kissing each other on Thursday after a targeted campaign by a conservative group. Asked to explain why the ads had been rejected, an employee of Hallmark’s parent company said the channel did not accept ads “that are deemed controversial,” according to an email exchange shared with The New York Times. A spokesman for Hallmark said the women’s “public displays of affection” violated the channel’s policies, but he declined to comment on why a nearly identical ad featuring a bride and groom kissing was not rejected.

The series of six ads, for the wedding planning website Zola, first appeared on the Hallmark Channel on Dec. 2. The ads, which feature several configurations of couples, all offer variations on the same concept: While standing at the altar, couples ponder whether guests would have arrived on time and bought them better gifts if only they had created a custom wedding website with Zola. In some of the ads, the couples kiss at the altar and in the aisle, surrounded by friends. Most of the ads feature a same-sex female couple along with heterosexual couples. One of the six ads focuses on only the lesbian couple.

Early this week, One Million Moms, a division of the conservative American Family Association that defines its mission as the “fight against indecency,” published a petition urging Hallmark to “please reconsider airing commercials with same-sex couples.” A statement on the organization’s website announcing the campaign quotes an unnamed commenter on a Hallmark Channel message board: “Why would you show a lesbian wedding commercial on the Hallmark Channel? Hallmark movies are family friendly, and you ruined it with the commercial.” As of Friday evening, nearly 25,000 people had signed a petition to make Hallmark reconsider the commercials, according to the site.

The Hallmark Channel spokesman suggested on Friday afternoon that the issue was the couple’s kissing. “The decision not to air overt public displays of affection in our sponsored advertisement, regardless of the participants, is in line with our current policy, which includes not featuring political advertisements, offensive language, R-rated movie content and many other categories,” he said. Only four of the ads were rejected as controversial, however, according to the email exchange with Zola and several of the company’s representatives. In one of the two ads that were permitted to continue to air, a bride and groom kiss passionately at the altar.

Mike Chi, the chief marketing officer of Zola, said he was taken aback by Hallmark’s decision to pull the ads. Zola has run ads featuring same-sex couples on the Hallmark channel previously, he said, without hiccups. He said he was not convinced that the issue was the kiss. “The only difference between the commercials that were flagged and the ones that were approved was that the commercials that did not meet Hallmark’s standards included a lesbian couple kissing,” he said. “Hallmark approved a commercial where a heterosexual couple kissed. All kisses, couples and marriages are equal celebrations of love and we will no longer be advertising on Hallmark.”

[From The New York Times]

It’s honestly great press for Zola, especially if they stick with the decision to cancel their ad buy on the Hallmark Channel. It’s not great press for the Hallmark Channel though, and even as I write this, #BoycottHallmarkChannel is trending on Twitter. Hallmark looks like they caved to some noisy homophobes and like they’re pandering to this churchy Mike Pence crowd who still think that gay marriage is somehow some kind of “culture war.” It’s really not.

Oh, after I wrote all of that, Hallmark finally got with the program and vowed to reinstate the Zola commercials. The Hallmark Channel issued a new statement saying: “The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we’ve seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused. Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision,” said Mike Perry, President and CEO, Hallmark Cards, Inc., in a statement obtained by PEOPLE on Sunday evening. “Our mission is rooted in helping all people connect, celebrate traditions, and be inspired to capture meaningful moments in their lives. Anything that detracts from this purpose is not who we are. We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused.” Hm.

Screencaps from the Zola ad.