Zola Cuts Ties With Hallmark Channel for Pulling Lesbian Wedding Ad

Hallmark yanked all of the ads from wedding registry site Zola that included a lesbian wedding, but not the two ads that featured only opposite-sex couples.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

December 13 2019 5:47 PM EST

December 14 2019 6:48 AM EST

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Following pressure from anti-LGBTQ groups including One Million Moms, the Hallmark Channel pulled four ads from wedding registry site Zola that feature lesbian nuptials, while keeping two Zola ads that don't include the same-sex wedding narrative. Now, Zola has pulled the entire campaign from the Hallmark Channel and canceled all of its advertising with the network "for the foreseeable future," a spokesperson told The Advocate.

However, the ads that feature two women getting married is still airing on several other networks and is streaming on Hulu.

Zola created six different ads for its campaign that ran on Hallmark, four of which included the same-sex couple. When Hallmark pulled the four ads featuring the gay couple but left the two ads that featured only opposite-sex couples, Zola made the decision to pull all of the ads, according to the spokesperson.

"Hallmark has now pulled our ads featuring the same-sex couple. We decided to cancel all our advertising on Hallmark and pull the remainder of our ads," Zola officials told The Advocate in a statement.

The move by Hallmark comes a week after it announced it would be open to making a Christmas movie that featured a same-sex couple, and days after groups like One Million Moms called for a boycott of the channel because of the gay-themed Zola ad.

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"Please reconsider airing commercials with same-sex couples, and please do not add LGBT movies to the Hallmark Channel. Such content goes against Christian and conservative values that are important to your primary audience. You will lose viewers if you cave to the LBGT agenda. The Hallmark Channel has always been known for its family friendly movies. Even its commercials are usually safe for family viewing. But unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. Recently, One Million Moms received concerns about Hallmark airing a commercial from Zola.com in which two lesbians are shown kissing at the end of their wedding ceremony."

Watch the ad that Hallmark pulled below: