The show - which centres around the lives of four young girls -
piqued interest in the United States when one of its main
characters came out as a lesbian, earlier this year.
Although it largely generated a warm reaction from audience
members, not everyone was happy. The Florida Family Association,
who are infamous for rallying against gay equality, claimed the
show's same-sex storyline was a potential danger to its young ABC
Family fans and should be dropped.
Subsequently, they campaigned for commercial advertisers to
boycott the show on grounds of so-called decency.
Shortly after, Re/Max Realty - a US letting agency - and food
company General Mills both pulled spots on the show's advert
breaks. According to Fox News, the FFA initially took credit for
the u-turn, but now both companies are denying the decision has
anything to do with the show's new lesbian angle.
"We make advertising decisions based on audience demographics and
relevance for our brands, not based on the sexual orientation of
characters," a General Mills representative told Fox News in a
statement, while Remax Realty called the rumours "erroneous."
Despite this, FFA are championing the decision - and hope it
will encourage other commercial businesses to avoid a space within
the show's broadcast.
"We would love to see the program change its content to remove the
explicit lesbianism that is then presented to an audience of
girls," David Caton, FFA founder said.
"That would be something we'd love to see but we know that
producers are not likely to do that, so we're going to continue to
contact companies that are paying the advertising costs and
sponsorship for the program as long as it stays on the air. We're
in this to make a difference."
