A Maryland family is defending themselves against One Million Moms after the conservative parenting group launched a boycott against American Girl, alleging they “promoted sin” by featuring the family.

The controversy began after 11-year-old Amaya Scheer and her family were featured in last month’s edition of the magazine in an article titled “Forever Family.” In the article Scheer, who is adopted, talks about the charity her family started, which provides foster children with “comfort cases” filled with clothes and toiletries. The cause is deeply personal because before Scheer and her three siblings were adopted by their gay dads, they were all in foster care.

American Girl features a same-sex family article, One Million Moms attack it: https://t.co/iFTrEvTAzI via @RawStory pic.twitter.com/qMAFWaMX8Z

— Slant (@SlantNews) November 9, 2015

The story was meant to showcase the amazing work that this unique family is doing for their community, but One Million Moms claimed American Girl “could have chosen another child to write about and remained neutral in the culture war.” The organization justified the boycott on its website writing:

American Girl is attempting to desensitize our youth by featuring a family with two dads. If your child has not seen this yet, then be careful she is not exposed and can avoid a premature conversation she is far too young to understand.

First of all it is ridiculous that this organization believes the magazine should have passed over Scheer’s stellar accomplishments to instead feature a more “neutral” family (presumably one less gay and less ethnic). American Girl’s positive representation of an LGBT-parented family in its pages isn’t an attempt to brainwash conservative youth. Instead it’s an example of charity, compassion, and family–plain and simple.

I fully understand that every parent is entitled to raise their children with their personal set of morals and values, but trying to keep children in a homosexual-free bubble is futile. Gay marriage is now legal in all 50 of the United States, and more and more families will begin looking like the Scheers. So these conversations are going to happen one way or another, and I would hope parents would use it as an opportunity to teach about love and respect, rather than hate and fear.

Rob Scheer told Good Day DC on Monday that he expected a certain amount of criticism, but was shocked that the attack came from a group of “moms.” Scheer said,

These were moms! These were moms that were saying that my family was wrong, that the love that my husband and I are giving our four kids and what we’re doing was wrong.

He then pointed out,

I would expect moms not to say these type of things about our family. But at the same time, these are a ‘million moms,’ they could really be helping the 364,000 kids in foster care.

[…]

This is our family and it works for us. And you know what? We have four amazing kids that we adopted out of foster care. These are four kids that have fulfilled our life more than we ever thought.

But luckily Amaya Scheer didn’t need the help of her fathers or my liberal rant in order to fire back at her motherly haters. Instead she articulated the perfect response ever when a news host asked her what she would say to those people who don’t understand her family. She stated:

“I would say ‘This is none of your business.'”

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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