Mattel publishes a tie-in magazine called American Girl. It contains stories, craft projects and non-fiction articles aimed at a target audience of young girls. Of course Claire was a subscriber.

American Girl surfaced in the media recently after it featured a story about a same-sex couple in Darnestown, Md., who have adopted four children after taking them in through the foster-care system. One of the children, an 11-year-old girl named Amaya, shared her story with the magazine.

That's when the Religious Right decided to start raising a ruckus. A group called One Million Moms blasted the magazine for daring to profile a same-sex couple.

"The magazine also could have chosen another child to write about and remained neutral in the culture war," fumed a post on the One Million Moms website. It accused American Girl of trying to "desensitize our youth by featuring a family with two dads" and called on subscribers to cancel their subscriptions to the magazine and bombard Mattel with messages of disapproval.

Now, there are few things you should know about One Million Moms. Like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, Roman nor an empire, One Million Moms doesn't have a million members, and chances are many of its supporters aren't moms.

One Million Moms, in fact, is a front group for the American Family Association (AFA), one of the nastiest and most homophobic Religious Right outfits in the country. (The Southern Poverty Law Center calls it a hate group.)

The AFA, like most Religious Right groups, is run primarily by old dudes, like this. I'm only seeing one potential mom there.

Remember, this is the group that has given harbor to the notorious right-wing loon Bryan Fischer (who is also not a mom) for many years. The AFA, based in Tupelo, Miss., has long had it in for American Girls because the dolls - horror of horrors! - encourage girls to be headstrong and independent problem solvers.

Why does One Million Moms exist? It's like this: The AFA was founded in the late 1970s to clean up television - its original name was the National Federation for Decency. The rise of cable pretty much made that a non-starter, so the AFA moved on to more lucrative pastures and these days spends most of its time blasting gays, regurgitating talking points from the Republican National Committee, moaning about the phony "war on Christmas" and attacking anything President Barack Obama says.

But the AFA still wanted to have a hand in its original mission of getting the filth off of television by endlessly carping about TV shows it considers too risqué for children. (The new Muppets program, for example, is not family friendly!) Hence the creation of One Million Moms. (There is an allied One Million Dads group, but you don't hear much out of them.)

Here's the funny thing: This group of one million moms has only about 82,000 "likes" on its Facebook page, and a rather unimpressive 3,300 followers on Twitter. I suspect there's more Astroturf than grassroots to this group.

As for the group's attack on Rob and Reece Scheer, the couple who has adopted the four homeless children, well, it's just ugly and mean-spirited. In the story that ran in American Girl, Amaya recounted how she and her brother arrived at the Scheers house in 2009 with everything they owned stuffed into two trash bags. As The Washington Post reported, the two had been in three foster homes in four months.

Their journeys stopped when the Scheers adopted them. The couple then went on to adopt two brothers. The Scheers now have four children spanning the ages of 6-11.

When I read about the Scheers in The Post, I could only stand in awe of their kind-heartedness and decency. Four children who didn't have a home now have a secure place to live that is filled with love and care - and we're to believe that's a threat to "family values"? What the Scheers have done is the epitome of family values!  It's something that most sensible moms (and dads) would applaud. 

So to the Scheers I say, don't let the bigots get you down. What you're doing is amazing, and your all-American family is simply beautiful.

Also, consider taking a trip to the American Girl Place in Tysons Corner, Va. I think the whole family would have a good time.

P.S. One Million Moms is asking its supporters to email Susan Jevens, senior public relations associate at American Girl, and express disapproval about the story. It would be great if instead she got messages from people telling her not to listen to the hateful zealots of the AFA. You can email her at: susan.jevens@americangirl.com.