Toronto Ice Cream Shop Accused of Pushing an ‘Anti-Christ’ Agenda

There are many things in the world to be angry about, but some American Christians have decided to spend their energy complaining about a Toronto ice cream chain.

Their anger is directed at Sweet Jesus, an ice cream brand founded in 2015 which runs about a dozen stores clustered around the GTA. Recently, Sweet Jesus decided to expand into the States and across Canada—opening one store in Baltimore and planning to open one in the Mall of America. This is when some Christians saw the name and thusly decided to take up holy arms against the shop.

The main weapon in their sweet tooth crusade is petitions—the first, started on the conservative action site Citizen Go, has about 9,000 signatures so far. Citizen Go has several other important campaigns in the works including making Justin Trudeau apologize for his “blasphemous” Christmas sweater.

The author of the petition shows they are super angry over three types of ice cream served up at the store: “Red Rapture”, “Hella Nutella”, and “Sweet Baby Jesus,” and think one “S” in Sweet Jesus is a shout out to Hitler. “It is noteworthy that the first ‘s’ in the Jesus in their company logo mimics the Nazi symbol for Hitler’s paramilitary organization, the ‘SS,’” reads the petition.

The petition also links to a blog post by “Activist Mommy” which claims that the ice cream shop also “fetishizes children” by using them in their advertisement. For example, they are mad at an image of a boy in a sailors uniform as it is an “outfit reminiscent of the sailor in the homosexual music group The Village People.”

“There is nothing cute or clever about these advertisements, they are sick and creepy and only sick and creepy people would be inspired to buy their product upon seeing them,” reads the post.

A second petition was launched earlier in March on Change.org and is, at least according to the write-up, going directly to Justin Trudeau. It’s received about 1,200 signatures so far and say that those behind it are boycotting the brand.

The ice cream shop is defending their name saying that they got it from the exclamation people say when eating something hella tasty—that it was, “created from the popular phrase that people use as an expression of joy, surprise or disbelief.”

“We are conscious of the fact that, to some, our name can be off-putting,” said Andrew Richmond, one of Sweet Jesus’ co-founders, in a statement. ”That fact is something we struggle with because we sincerely do not wish to give offense or show disrespect in any way toward anyone’s personal beliefs. Neither is it our intention to be exploitative or flagrantly provocative.”

The petition addresses these claims directly by saying, “even if this were some innocent faux-pas, it would still be unacceptable!” They also, of course, bring Muslims into it and bemoan that allowing an ice cream shop to be named Sweet Jesus is the first stop on an anti-Christ slippery slope.

[Note from the author: this next section is best read in the voice of Helen Lovejoy]

“It is time for Christians to take a stand against the anti-Christ agenda, clearly now in open season against Christianity. If this Ice Cream chain is permitted to keep the mocking and blasphemous name of Sweet Jesus, what is next?”

Won’t somebody think of all the little children, all the little children in the world!?!

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.