Daily Verse | 1 Corinthians 15:46
The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that, the spiritual.
Monday’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 1-5
Happy Monday and thanks for joining me. Our Thanksgiving guests are safely on their way back to their current homes and the Christmas lights are up at mine.
Black Friday has been extended through the weekend and today is Cyber Monday, the first volley of a non-stop effort to part you from your money from now until Christmas.
Hopefully you’ll avoid super luxury brand Balenciaga.
High-fashion brand Balenciaga is facing backlash for an ad campaign that features photos of child models holding teddy bears dressed in bondage gear; the brand also used an image of a Supreme Court opinion in a child pornography case as a prop promoting a handbag.
Backlash was swift and loud.
Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, a conservative women’s rights group, called the images “exploitive propaganda.”
“This is not about them being provocative and getting attention,” Nance said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “The entire campaign sexualizes children, period. It is child exploitation, period. And it feeds and normalizes a culture that is dark and depraved.”
That’s true. Not only does it feed a culture that is dark and depraved, it pushes that hunger for depravity further. There is a concerted effort to normalize the sexual exploitation of children, especially for pederasts.
There were two concurrent campaigns for Balenciaga’s products and each drew heavy condemnation. The first involved a partially-covered document from a Supreme Court decision about the sale of child pornography, while the second involved images of children holding teddy bears that were “dressed” in bondage gear.
One child stood on a couch while holding a purple teddy bear which was dressed in a bondage outfit, including leather straps wrapped around its neck connected to ruffled thigh straps, according to online screenshots. In another photo, a different child stood in front of a table of Balenciaga merchandise holding another bondage teddy bear; this stuffed animal wore a mesh shirt, had leather straps tied around its ankles and wrists along with a choker around its neck with a metal padlock attached. This bear also appeared to have dyed fur like that of a black eye.
Kim Kardashian, certainly no role model, condemned the images and left her future association with the brand in doubt.
“I have been quiet for the past few days, not because I haven’t been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because I wanted an opportunity to speak to their team to understand for myself how this could have happened,” she shared across her social media platforms.
“As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images. The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period.”
Last year’s Super Bowl MVP and follower of Jesus, Cooper Kupp, also spoke out against the disgusting ad campaign.
Balenciaga apologized for the depraved content and deleted the brand’s Instagram posts.
“We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign. We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring 23 campaign photoshoot,” a brand statement published on Instagram read. “We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children safety and well-being.”
In United States v. Williams, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not a violation of the First Amendment to prosecute individuals pandering the sale of child pornography without actually possessing such material.
But it was also a partial win because the court ruled that ruled that “virtual child pornography,” which does not use actual children in its production, could not be criminalized. So you could have a child pornographer using created images to peddle their filth and they couldn’t be prosecuted for it.
The other part of their apology was regarding the images of children with the bondage bears.
Balenciaga simultaneously apologized for a separate but concurrent ad campaign that featured photos of child models holding teddy bears dressed in bondage gear.
“We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused. Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms,” read a separate post from Balenciaga.
Sort of a soft apology considering the “crime.” They apologize “for any offense” their ads “may have caused”? I read that as, “we didn’t mean to offend anyone and are really surprised that people were offended.”
Seriously?
I would’ve expected them to denounce the ads in the strongest possible terms, apologized profusely for allowing such garbage to slip by their marketing department, and announced that several employees in the marketing and PR departments had been dismissed from the company immediately. Not to mention the photographer.
We live in a morally depraved society and it’s now the family that is on the defensive, not the marketers or the companies peddling this $#!+.
Remember, these companies live and die on their earnings. Starve them of revenue and profit and they’ll go out of business.