Christian group calls for boycott over Ellen DeGeneres ad with elves

The anti-LGBT activist group One Million Moms is calling on Christians to boycott JCPenney department stores because talk show host Ellen DeGeneres appears in a routine Christmas ad.

As NBC noted on Thursday, JCPenny's commercial, in which DeGeneres wears holiday clothes and insults elves with short jokes, will not strike most viewer as controversials in any way.

But for One Million Moms, seeing the lesbian comedienne on their television screens was an instant cause for action.

"Since April, JC Penney's has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now," the group wrote on its website. "A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets."

Viewers on YouTube were puzzled by the group's reaction.

"One Million Moms or as I call them a seething hot ball of bigotry, hate, intolerance and inequality," one commenter wrote. "There is nothing wrong with that ad."

Earlier this year, DeGeneres spoke out on her television show after One Million Moms called on her to be fired as JCPenney's spokesperson because she was a lesbian.

"For a group that calls themselves ‘One Million Moms,’ they only have 40,000 members on their page. So, they are rounding to the nearest million and I get that," she joked.

"But I really want to thank everyone who is supporting me, and if you don’t know me very well, if you’re just watching for the first time or maybe you are just getting to know me, I want to be clear," DeGeneres added. "Here are the values that I stand for: I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values. That’s what I stand for."

“Oh, also I believe in dance.”

Watch this video, uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 27, 2012.