Walmart appeared to get ahead of “Pride Month” with an online ad published in late May. The ad advertises the new “Pride Always” collection and the bizarre-looking people behind it. One person, a man dressed in women’s clothes, is co-owner of a paper company who identifies as a “lesbian trans woman,” AFN has learned.
In the ad, a second person identified as Bianca shows off a notebook that features a human skull breathing the rainbow flag colors. That same imagery, which the artist calls a “rainbow skull,” is featured on other products, too, such as a tumbler, a fanny pack, and a t-shirt.
“While I was creating my collection, it was important to me for it to be positive and uplifting,” Bianca says in the ad.
Bianca’s website, Bianca Designs, describes her as a “queer, gender-fluid Latine artist.”
“Walmart seems to have been completely captured by the LGBTQ juggernaut," Ed Vitagliano, a spokesman for the American Family Association, said of the “Pride Always” collection.
With a whopping $611 billion in store revenue last year, Walmart itself is a juggernaut in retail and Fortune 500 companies.
Walmart is also the largest private employer in the world, with 2.1 million employees. That means many of those employees are being forced to keep their traditional and biblical views to themselves over Walmart’s “Pride resource group,” which ironically demands an “inclusive environment” and “personal freedom” among employees.
Walmart's "Pride Always" collection caught the attention of The New York Post. That story pointed out that a retail rival, Target, recently announced it was pulling back on "Pride" merchandise due to public backlash.
Discussing Walmart on American Family Radio, Vitagliano said AFA has given Walmart a “fairly wide berth” in recent years because AFA knew insiders at Walmart were actively pushing back on the LGBT activism within the corporation.
AFA, known for its boycotts of major corporations, maintained a relationship with sympathetic Walmart executives going back several years.
“I think it's safe to assume,” Vitagliano concluded, “that those people have been overwhelmed by the people brought into Walmart."
Asked what customers can do to voice their disapproval, Vitagliano said the best course of action is to speak directly to a store manager.
"Be respectful, and don't be hateful," he said. "If you're a Christian, it's an oxymoron to be a hateful Christian, but be firm and have your say."
A related “Action Alert” from AFA, sent to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, asks him to “simply promote a quality product at a fair price.”
Editor's Note: The American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
