Anti-yoga Ohio pastors send letter to Kroger CEO decrying LGBTQ+ support

A group of pastors in Ohio sent a letter to Kroger’s CEO in Cincinnati denouncing the grocery store chain’s LGBTQ+ support initiatives.

The letter signed by nearly 80 pastors – 51 from Richland County – states that there is an ongoing boycott against Kroger from the anti-LGBTQ+ group One Million Moms and the wider faith community because the grocery store chain “is aligned and closely associated with a shameful and diabolical” LGBTQ+ policies. 

The boycott was triggered by Kroger receiving a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign’s 2025 Corporate Equality Index, According to the HRC, Kroger has nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ employees, inclusive benefits, and transgender inclusive policies in regards to dress codes and pronoun sharing.

“A cultural shift is taking place in our country and your company, which is headquartered in Ohio, is ‘late to the dinner table,’” the letter reads. “As the saying goes: ‘When you go woke, you go broke.’”

Some of the pastors who signed the letter to Kroger also:

• Signed a letter last February to a school board denouncing teaching yoga to students because yoga is associated with Hinduism, which they claim sets a double standard on religion in schools.
• Signed a letter in 2018 implying that elected officials are not bound by judicial rulings and telling their faith communities to resist the federal judiciary (a pastor who volunteers as an auxiliary police officer with the Mansfield Police Department also signed the letter). 
• Signed a letter in 2022 complaining over students using bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity, though they did suggest adding gender-neutral bathrooms as an alternative.
• Made a Halloween attraction in 2013 that displayed school shootings and a scene depicting women held in captivity by Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro.

One of the signers of the letter to Kroger is J.C. Church, who is affiliated with the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.

One Million Moms is a division of the anti-LGBTQ+ nonprofit American Family Association. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Vice President of AFA Walker Wildmon endorsed the racist and anti-semitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory on a recent episode of his podcast.

Ben Huelskamp, executive director of LGBTQ+ Christian nonprofit LOVEboldy, told the Buckeye Flame he is “tired of reading letters from groups of Christian leaders who do real harm to the Christian faith.

“They use shock tactics, including provocative and false statements, to make their case, because they know that what they’re arguing is contrary to the words and example of Jesus,” Huelskamp said.

Maria Bruno, executive director of the nonprofit Ohioans Against Extremism, said the pastors’ letters were ironic.

“The Bible itself warns of religious leaders that cloak intolerance in godliness, and I can’t help but be reminded of Matthew 7:15: ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,’” Bruno said.

Kroger did not respond to The Buckeye Flame’s request for comment. 🔥

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• To find more information about churches that are open and affirming for LGBTQ+ congregants, visit LOVEboldly’s website here.