That is the myth on Free Republic. What actually happened was that the new CEO abandoned, threw out, ousted more than a hundred years of how to run a retail department store.
His new way failed totally. He was an idiot who had no clue that his methods would have such a negative effect. The Ellen stuff had some influence but was marginal.
No, it was NOT marginal and is not a myth. In the circles I inhabit, the homo stuff is key to the store's demise - most associates I know stopped shopping there SOLELY for this reason.
It wasn't just the Ellen spokesperson stuff. The in-your-face homosexual ads last year were beyond the pale. Depicting two women or two men with "their children" for Mother's and Father's Day was a sharp slap in the face to tradition, family-oriented shoppers everywhere. They DID sit up and take notice of that betrayal.
We'll see if the reversal on the sales angle alone revives the store. It won't, because it was much more than this.