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| Maggie Gallagher of NOM |
The new protest campaign was announced after the annual Starbucks shareholders meeting today in Seattle, where NOM spokesmen queried the board on its new policies promoting gay marriage and demanded protection against discrimination for employees, vendors and customers who disagree.
"We respect the important role of businesses in providing goods, services and jobs, and that people of diverse moral views build great companies working together," Brown said. "But Starbucks has corporately, as an organization, endorsed and helped pass gay marriage in the state of Washington. Its executive vice president of partner resources has stated that gay marriage "is aligned with Starbucks business practices and upholds our belief in the equal treatment of partners. It is core to who we are and what we value as a company." Corporations should not take sides in a culture war that pits a company against half the American people, and nearly all its consumers in some international markets."
Of course this press release is totally different than what Brown was telliing NOM's supporters on its blog:
Dear Marriage Supporter,
We are urging consumers across the globe to "Dump Starbucks" because the massive international corporation has taken a corporate-wide position that marriage between one man and one woman should be eliminated and that same-sex marriage should become the norm.
Starbucks did nothing as extreme as Brown makes it sounds and its CEO, Howard Shultz, clearly explained that during the shareholders meeting in question.
But who cares about the truth when you have an angle to push? Certainly not NOM, certainly not Brown, and certainly not Maggie Gallgher as she breathlessly celebrated the supposed success of NOM's crusade against Starbucks on another post on NOM's blog:
We're just about to hit 7,000 pledges over at DumpStarbucks.com. And my post at The Corner has generated more comments--121--than anything I've ever posted.
Stay tuned, we are in for a big ride with this thing!
More about those "pledges" later. But if the comments on Gallagher's post is any indication of the "big ride" she is talking about, then that ride is obviously a downward spiral into the lowest reaches of Hades with no signs of upturns.
To put it nicely, Gallagher may be celebrating the fact that her post generated 121 comments (146 as of now), but she was careful to omit that many of those comments weren't exactly friendly towards NOM's boycott. Comments like such:
HAHA. I'm sure Starbucks is concerned Maggie. Supporting gay marriage sure does taste delicious, I have to say.
And right on cue, Maggie shows up to open a third front in the conservative war on voters. Every survey since Kinsey has estimated the number of gay people in America at somewhere around 5 percent of the population. So... about 10 million adults. Add in the fact that many of these people have parents, relatives, friends and colleagues who care about them, and you're getting into some real numbers. While you're busy getting women all fired up about their reproductive rights and mobilizing the minority voting blocs, make sure you get to this one as well, lest a few stray voters somewhere in the nation haven't yet received the the message that Republicans only want votes from people who look, act and think exactly like they do.
Chiming in here: I'm 100% straight, and 100% in favor of the actions of Starbucks. Disagree if you will, but don't be so presumptuous as to tell me what I'm really thinking or that I have some "evil" agenda underneath it all.
Starbucks isn't imposing on anyone. They are just saying they'd like to offer their benefits to same sex couples. I've lived in a couple of neighborhoods where gay couples have moved in and made it a better place. They tend to be committed and socially responsible, make good livings, pay their taxes and positively contribute to society. I think it's not too much to ask to allow them the ability to visit their loved one in a hospital, share insurance benefits and other benefits that come from civil marriage. Seeing how these did not exist until the last hundred years or so, it wasn't an issue earlier.
And to pile on, Equality Matters points out the hypocrisy of NOM's boycott against Starbucks:
NOM's decision to launch an international boycott against a pro-equality company is notable, given how frequently the group condemns gay activists for engaging in identical behavior, including:
the “intolerable” boycott of anti-gay fast food giant Chick-fil-A
threats to boycott Florida business over ties to anti-gay Rep. Allen West (R-FL)
the “ricochet strategy” of boycotting New Balance over ties to Mitt Romney
calls to boycott Blue Bunny ice cream over ties to anti-gay Bob Vander Plaats
a supposed boycott of anti-gay NY town clerk Rose Marie Belforti’s artisan cheese farm
pressuring law firm King & Spalding to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
a call to “boycott” offering services to anti-equality New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez
But the proof of NOM's boycott failure is about results. At last count, 18,798 people have signed NOM's anti-Starbucks petition.
However, there is another action online to THANK Starbucks for its support of marriage equality. And at last count, 254,054 on Facebook and 7,164 on Twitter have signed that Thank You card.
Naturally NOM has omitted mention about that. But don't worry.
I won't.
Hat tip to Equality Matters for NOM's press release.
Oh my goodness, 146 comments on a blog?!? Well she's done it. She's won the culture war.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of those things that makes me sure people like that are quickly on their way out, and they don't even know how irrelevant they're becoming. I guess one would need to understand how the world (and especially the internet) works to get that, though.
They must be taking their cue from AFA. AFA's famous boycotts (or those of its subsidiary One Million Moms) include Disney, Home Depot, Ford Motors, JC Penney, Macy's, etc. It's a pretty extensive list.
ReplyDeleteWhat shocking, SHOCKING, I tell you, is that none of these companies suffered any ill effects from these boycotts. For every customer they lose, they'll gain at least one or two.
NOM, and it's sister organization are toothless tigers in this arena.
"Corporations should not take sides in a culture war that pits a company against half the American people, and nearly all its consumers in some international markets."
ReplyDeleteUnless, of course, the corporation happens to be Chick-fil-a.
The funniest part about them is they still think they're relevant, and that they represent the majority. So they speak out and tell their people who to work against. In the process they have told us where to go and give support countering them. Their boycott is probably the best PR starbucks could get.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand these people. They still use computers despite the fact that every company that has developed every OS, including Google, Bing, supports SSM in some way shape or form.
ReplyDeleteThey still get on planes, despite the fact that every airline carrier supports SS couples.
They are a laugh, moreover a cry.
Let's look at the logic here...let's say that Starbucks' customer base is one percent of the population, that would be roughly 3mill people. they have a list of 19k that swear to boycott. Can't these people do simple math and realize that they don't even scratch their bottom line. I mean, come on, are they that dense?
There’s no such thing as a flop when you don’t live in a reality based world. NOM is claiming that HRS is helping their boycott efforts by linking to their video from the shareholder meeting – they don’t get that it doesn’t make them look good.
ReplyDelete