When Love Looks Like Target
By Jean-Philippe Gabriel — frameworklove.com | June , 2025
Target has often been at the center of cultural debate. In recent years, its Pride-themed merchandise has sparked backlash from some conservatives, leading the company at times to scale back displays. Supporters see these campaigns as affirmations of inclusion; critics view them as political statements that overstep.
But Target has a history of pushing the boundaries of inclusivity in retail. In 2015, it introduced size-16 mannequins in its Australian stores, embracing greater body-size representation. Its ad campaigns have regularly featured people of different body types, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and individuals with disabilities or visible conditions. This has included models with ichthyosis, prosthetic limbs, children in wheelchairs, and people with vitiligo—a skin condition in which patches of skin lose pigment, creating lighter areas of varying size and shape. One campaign featuring a model with vitiligo drew praise from a customer whose granddaughter also has the condition.
While these decisions are often welcomed, they also face criticism—especially from some social-conservative or religious-conservative voices—who see such branding as a form of social relativism. Many of these concerns are rooted in a genuine desire to preserve values they believe protect the vulnerable, and are expressed out of love for family, community, and tradition. Yet, ironically, such postures can drift toward the very thing love seeks to avoid: becoming rule-bound, resembling the law more than love itself. In guarding values through restriction, it risks closing the door to the transformative, restorative nature of love—achieving the opposite of what is intended.
This Is Love
If God is love, then love cannot be reduced to one attribute—like kindness, compassion, or generosity. It must be the defining reality from which all other virtues flow. A God who is love does not merely act in loving ways; His very nature is love.
This means love cannot be sentiment alone. It must have structure—both form and logic. Without logic, love loses the power to endure; it becomes preference, impulse, or indulgence, but not a governing reality.
Real love requires an ontology—a definition of what it is and what it demands. Without that grounding, love loses its identity. It may inspire warmth or goodwill, but it cannot sustain justice, protect the vulnerable, or restore what is broken.
Logic gives love the capacity to act consistently, even when emotions fade or circumstances change. Form gives it recognizable shape, so it can be trusted and applied. Together, form and logic make love more than an aspiration; they make it a force capable of transforming individuals, shaping societies, and—if God truly is love—sustaining creation itself.
This is the kind of love Jesus spoke of—a love that is not optional sentiment but the central command. When asked to name the greatest commandment, He answered: love God and love your neighbor, declaring that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40). The law is not an end in itself, but a mirror showing where love is lacking.
Scripture makes clear that love is what is demanded. The law reveals what justice requires, but only love fulfills it. Law can restrain harm, but love restores. Law can measure wrongdoing, but only love can heal the wrong. To follow Jesus is to pursue this structured, demanding love—a love that safeguards dignity and seeks the good of others, even at personal cost.
Call to Action
Love’s framework is infinitely hopeful yet deeply urgent, for it makes us co-creators with God. That responsibility is sobering. The first commandment—“You shall have no other gods before Me”—takes on sharper meaning if God is love. There can be nothing higher than love, no greater authority. The law cannot be elevated above love. We cannot sanctify pain or indifference and call it God’s will. Love does not give suffering.
This means love is higher than any other concern. Suffering and healing come before political loyalty, ideology, or debates over social relevance. This is not about demanding less from ourselves—it is about demanding more. Love’s standard raises the bar. Under love, the law becomes a mirror of our love, and suffering is evidence that somewhere the law has been broken. Love drives us to find the cause and apply the remedy—to heal, tend, and serve.
True love applies the law to ourselves, not as a tool for judging others. Love places the greater weight on us: our neighbor’s suffering becomes our concern. Their pain, their struggles, and their needs are not “between them and God.” Under love, deformity, disability, and chronic pain are not God’s design. Love—and therefore God—would never create someone to be inferior as an act of will. Love’s responsibility is to help, to address pain, isolation, and hopelessness.
Target and the Work of Love
Seen in this light, what Target has done in championing inclusivity can be an act of love. It is long established that there is no single, inherent definition of beauty. Beauty is broader than many perceive. Target’s choice to push the boundaries of inclusivity in retail—whether as marketing strategy or moral conviction—was a risk. To step out and be inclusive is, in its essence, love.
The inclusion of diverse races, genders, ethnic backgrounds, disabilities, and physical differences—whether in film, advertising, or retail—shapes public perceptions of what is acceptable. It can shift cultural standards of beauty, influence societal norms, and challenge entrenched values. It can also reduce suffering by:
Changing how society interacts with and perceives people who differ from the majority.
Improving the self-esteem of those who live with such differences.
Seeing a person with vitiligo portrayed naturally is significant for both the individual and the community. What may initially be unfamiliar or uncomfortable becomes, through repeated exposure, normalized—building sensitivity and acceptance. That is the work of love.
When we follow the ontology of love, we see that love creates, grants autonomy, and fosters succession. It does not coerce or impose; it convinces through patience and presence. Target’s decision, voluntary and risky, reflects that spirit.
To Christ—not the law—we pursue. Love, total and complete, even to the point of loving one’s enemy, is the command. The coherence of life rests on love’s abundance. Our existence is measured not by what exists, but by the endurance of relationships that preserve life. In that sense, we live through dying—dying to self for the sake of others. To love is more important than to preserve; love is worth more than life itself.
Christians and social conservatives, rather than condemning Target, should recognize and appreciate what it represents in this context. We should be grateful for organizations that, without forcing ideology or silencing differing convictions, quietly make room for many forms, appearances, and standards to live side by side. Such efforts reduce isolation, affirm dignity, and reflect the kind of world love calls us to build. Supporting Target in creating a more inclusive society is not a compromise of faith—it is an expression of it. May God bless Target.