Some of the UK’s biggest brands are under pressure to stop advertising in the Daily Mail and Mail Online after one of its columnists wrote a scathing piece about Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black’s baby announcement.
“Pass the sick bag…”
Richard Littlejohn has written a column entitled, ‘Please don’t pretend two dads is the new normal’ in which he blasts the parents to be Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black for announcing that they are expectant fathers.
In the column, Littlejohn firstly questions who the mother is. Then goes on to ask, what role of the mother will play in their child’s life and who the sperm donor is.
ALSO READ: OPINION | The “mother” of all questions, who is Tom Daley’s surrogate mother?
Littlejohn then goes on to slam a transgender woman for becoming the first trans woman in the world to be able to breastfeed a child, born to her partner, who did not wish to breastfeed the child.
He misgenders the woman numerous times and describes the move as a selfish demand of “adults being given priority over the best interests of the unborn child”.
He writes,
“For a start, this person is described as a woman, but has had no surgery to transition from a man. Sorry, but I’m with Germaine Greer — someone in possession of a full set of wedding tackle is a man, not a woman.
Secondly, if this is his/her baby, did he/she fertilise the egg in the traditional fashion? On third thoughts, let’s not go there”.
Brands questioned
Brands such as Jet2, Calvin Klein, Quorn and Natwest have all had their brands advertised next to or under the content on the web version of the newspaper.
We’re wondering if @jet2tweets or @CalvinKlein is happy about being placed next to Daily Mail content like this from Richard Littlejohn @StopFundingHate pic.twitter.com/ltzvea6C73
— TheGayUK Magazine (@TheGayUK) February 16, 2018
The Daily Mail was urged to fire Richard Littlejohn by over 200,000 people in 2013 after a piece he wrote “monstered” transgender school teacher, Lucy Meadows, who sadly committed suicide shortly after her transition.
StopFundingHate a UK pressure group whose campaign focuses on changing the media via its advertisers have called upon Quorn, Natwest, Visa and VisitNorway to answer on whether they were happy that their brands were effectively funding the content on the MailOnline.
The ads placed on the column are provided by a system called InRead, by Teads, an inventor of native video advertising.
UPDATE: Both Center Parcs and Southbank have pulled their advertising spend for the Daily Mail.
THEGAYUK.com has reached out to Quorn, Natwest, Visa, Jet2 for comment.
