Next month in Houston, Texas, for the price of a ticket ($50 for an individual, or $5,000, $2,500, $1,500 $350 for a group), you can enjoy a fashion show, and a luncheon with a side of anti-abortion propaganda brought to you by Heroic Media and Dillard's.
Yes, that's Dillard's the department stores, who will supply the nautical themed outfits to be modeled by supporters of Heroic Media, an anti-abortion group that also enjoys wide support from Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, who have both helped them with fund raising in the past.
Last summer, Palin was a guest speaker for Heroic Media in Jacksonville, Florida where she was also joined by Republican John Thrasher at an event called "An Evening of Hope."
Huckabee participated in a fund raising event for Heroic Media in Orlando in February.
The April event in Houston is called "Sow Seeds For Life":
Join Heroic Media at our 2011 Luncheon & Style Show, Sowing Seeds for Life!
The style show is sponsored by Dillards, Memorial City and will feature today's most fashionable spring looks.
If the name "Heroic Media" sounds familiar, it's probably because of their recent campaign in New York, where they placed this controversial billboard near a Planned Parenthood facility:
(Screenshot from CBS New York)
The billboard was used because the group claimed that Planned Parenthood targets minority neighborhoods and that abortions among African-American women are three times that of the rest of the population. The billboard was so controversial that it had to be taken down immediately.
Heroic Media creates television, billboard and Internet advertising targeted at pregnant women and, lately, specifically aimed at African-Americans. The group recently placed a billboard in north Florida as well which also targets African Americans and Planned Parenthood, the basis for their current campaign.
According to The Florida Independent, Dillard's maintains that the sponsorship isn't political. In fact, the store manager in Houston claims he isn't aware that Heroic Media focuses on anti-anbortion issues:
Both Heroic Media and the Dillard’s branch insist that the partnership is not political. Dillard’s Memorial City manager Stephen Brophy says the store accepted the request to sponsor a fashion show because another branch had done one at a previous store and it was successful.
“We try to not get too political,” Brophy says. “We’re about fashion. We try to appeal to the masses.”
Brophy says he doesn’t know much about Heroic Media and isn’t aware that its focus is abortion issues. He asked The Florida Independent if Heroic Media supports abortion rights.
The Jacksonville billboard was paid for by the proceeds from a Sarah Palin fundraiser, and the language on the ad was inspired by a statement the former Alaska governor made, urging the audience to protect “our littlest sisters in the womb.”
As The Texas Independent has reported previously, Heroic Media founder Brian Follett has likened Planned Parenthood’s abortion work to "genocide" but that has not stopped potential GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin from speaking at high-priced Heroic fundraisers.
Republicans in Congress recently voted to defund Planned Parenthood, targeting them as abortion providers, while ignoring the fact that the group provides medical care to women and children.
I can't help but wonder if women would feel differently about shopping at a chain of department stores that supports anti-abortion fundraisers?
Dillard's may prefer to have the public think the upcoming "Sow Seeds For Life" fashion show is just about "Life, Gratitude, and Inspiration!" as the event website advertises. Unfortunately they're sponsoring a group that targets African Americans and Planned Parenthood, a group who would rather deprive women and children of medical care and cancer screenings, and deprive all women of having a "choice," period.
