There are many ways to put the “ding” in wedding. The Hallmark Channel found the wrong way to do so when it decided to pull an advertisement showing two women kissing at a wedding.

It seems like every Christmas there’s some controversy that pops up to turn the most wonderful time of the year into something that causes people to facepalm themselves and wonder just how far down the depths of stupidity go. It’s usually political correctness declaring that some phrase is forbidden, but this year, Hallmark decided to put the kibosh on an act, a kiss that two women shared as they were married.

The Hallmark Channel is known for providing heartwarming Christmas movies all day, every day for two months. With so many stories out there providing cheer and goodwill, it’s hard to fathom why the executives at the channel thought a lesbian wedding should not be one of the choices. After all, they weren’t clad in leather, riding motorcycles or embracing some other lesbian cliché to promoting the wedding company Zola, so why the fuss?

Because the commercial outraged One Million Moms, as no one in the allegedly seven-digit membership rolls can accept the fact that two women kiss, two men kiss or two people of the same gender can form a household and raise a family. The organization submitted a petition with 28,000 signatures to Hallmark demanding the commercial be pulled from the air.

Yes. An organization of “1 million” could only muster 28,000 signatures for a petition. For math nerds, that’s the equivalent of 2.8% of their supposed army finding the lesbian kiss outrageous enough to march on the company known for greeting cards. Where’s the other “97%”? Probably living real life.

There were six ads from Zola that were submitted to the channel for airing. After the one with the two women were pulled, Zola pulled the others and announced publicly it would not be doing business with Hallmark Channel at all in the future, whether it was listing wedding services for same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples.

Why, oh, why—on the dawn of 2020—do we have a supposedly “family” company that would allow a conservative group to dictate what kind of advertising is acceptable to air? Some people claim that equality for the LGBT community was established with the Supreme Court decision that allowed same-sex marriage in 2015 came to pass. If it’s legal, then why did Hallmark take steps to cancel the advertising?

The action angered people everywhere as they aired their outrage on social media, turning the hashtag #BoycottHallmark into a trending symbol of the resistance to oppression. For nearly two weeks, peppered with celebrity commentary from Ellen DeGeneres, Sandra Bernhard and the original Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, I awoke this morning to the news that Hallmark was looking for something that eliminated stains as it hurriedly announced it would restore Zola’s commercials—all of them.

“The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we’ve seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused. Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision,” Hallmark Cards CEO Mike Perry said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused.”

I think it’s the words “unintentionally caused” that stuck out in that statement. Did the company seriously think that pulling the ad would have just been ignored or even unilaterally accepted by society? Maybe the CEO should realize that mistletoe is a plant that people kiss under and is not spelled “missile toe,” which happens when you shoot yourself in the foot.

While it’s great the commercials will air, the apology still comes across as a bit hollow by the company, which has yet to run a feature film with a same-sex couple. Perhaps Hallmark should consider taking things a step further and make its Christmas stew of movies with a touch of LGBT seasoning.

If One Million Moms had claimed outrage at a commercial showing an interracial couple kissing and demanded it would be pulled, there would have been a violent reaction. Maybe someday there will be the same level of reaction to same-sex discrimination as racial discrimination, but we’re not there yet. In the meantime, give the person you love a big kiss today, no matter what their gender.