Supermarket giant Tesco has kicked off its Christmas advertising campaign with an advert featuring Sikhs, Muslims, and what appears to be a gay couple with a child, but no obviously Christian characters or iconography.
The #EveryonesWelcome advert, launched with the strapline “However you do Christmas, Everyone’s Welcome at Tesco” on social media, features a multi-ethnic cast of characters, including what appears to be two gay fathers, a gentleman in a turban, and even a group of Muslim women and a little girl in hijabs.
Indeed, an Ahmadiyya Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow who wished customers “Happy Easter” last year was stabbed to death by a hardline Sunni Muslim who drove all the way from Bradford to confront him.
Muslim Shopkeeper Murdered After Wishing Christians Happy Easter https://t.co/4Wnfs271IX pic.twitter.com/pjyGEHl0rB
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 26, 2016
Tesco’s advert does not feature any characters who are visibly Christian — for example, a priest or minister in a dog collar, or a woman wearing a necklace with a cross — and there are very few signs of obviously Christian decorations.
One out of focus Star of Bethlehem can be seen sitting on top of a Christmas tree behind an angry woman shouting at her family to get out of her kitchen for a fleeting moment, but there do not appear to be any angels, Nativity scenes, or other prominent signs of the Christian celebration of Christmas to be seen.