Remember when we told you about the 600 U.S. companies who help raise money for Christian Values Network, the online shopping service that funds anti-gay hate groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council?
Well, the international gay rights organization AllOut.org recently persuaded Westin Hotels, Expedia.com, Radisson and Country Inns & Suites, Plaza Hotels and Hotels.com to cut ties with CVN, joining the ranks of Apple, REI, Macy’s, Delta Airlines, BBC America, Wells Fargo and other companies who have stopped doing business with CVN too.
But plenty of other businesses that you probably patronize every day—KMart, Target, Sears, Best Buy, Radio Shack, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Perry Ellis and Steve Madden, among them—remain in cahoots with the anti-gay e-tail site. What can you do about it? Plenty, it turns out.
Besides boycotting or contacting the companies directly, you can sign All Out’s petition to urge these businesses to stop working with CVN. If they know pink and allied dollars won’t support them , maybe they’ll stop supporting people like:
Focus on the Family, which believes religious counseling can “cure” homosexuality, and the Family Research Council, which has been identified as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Peter Sprigg, a chief researcher for the Family Research Council, has argued for the deportation and imprisonment of gays and lesbians, according to SPLC, and the group recently directed members to pray for the continued criminalization of homosexuality in Malawi.
Despicable.
For a complete list of companies still doing business with CVN, check out the image on the next page.
Gorbeh
Geez, I might as well start boycotting shopping altogether…
Henry
I signed.
Clamydia Jones
Dats just wrong, Iffin dayz gotz a hair wevave place I aint gunna go dare no mo.
BillCooney
I signed the All Out petition and, hope that enough pressure is put on these retailers so that they recognize the value of our discretionary dollars. I’ve stopped going to Target already and will boycott the rest.
Slanty Kahn
You no visit Target, now that it revealed as bigot!
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Signing petitions is nice if ya want to get the warm and fuzzies, but for the most part they don’t have a lot of impact……….
What you need to do is find a few companies you wish to “target” use the googles on the internets and input “xyx company,executives, board of directors”. Write a letter not getting all rightous on them and explain that you are no longer spending your Gay dollars at their establishmements. Attach a recipt from one of their competitors showing just where your Gay dollars are now going.
There is a formula that has been created expounding out the value of an email, phone call, and letter. Figuring that most people think something but don’t act. Therefore they figure each method represents X amount of people. The more effort, the more they interpert the meaning and impact it makes. Therefore the gold standard is actually slapping your saliva on a stamp and sending it off……….
If ya wanna make an impact ya gotta make an effort….
k david
I called Netflix and they completely freaked out about being on the site. I got a call back from someone really high up who thought it was just an ad situation. When I explained, she realized what it was and was really upset. Their name has since been dropped from the site. YEAH!
Shannon1981
Signed the petition and telling as many people as I can think of to boycott these companies and spread the word.
timncguy
Oh Queerty, Queerty, Queerty…. Why does the picture accompanying this story include the logos for WalMart, PetSmart, Expedia, Toys R Us, and GAP when none of those stores are on your list of companies supporting the bigots?
Roman
It’s depressing that folks still look the other way and shop at Targe and other high profile business with their legacy of funding extreme religious groups and political candidates that promote the persecution of GLBT Americans. This continued demonization often leads to violence and suicides. It’s irresponsible and disgraceful.
Matt F
I emailed L’Occitane customer service two weeks ago ago and sent the link to the website and voila, they were not on it two days later. Have been Target-free since July 2010 and now, doubt if we will ever return. Have found we don’t need any of their cheap crap. Someone said they were in a store last month and everything has slipped it seemed. Costco has become the stock up store.
nix
I didn’t know gay people used pink money..seems like an odd concession
DavyJones
Hmm… Maybe someone can do more digging (Ahem.. Queerty?) but from what I can tell; when you use the CVN applet “ConnectionPlus” (which is what CVN.org points to, and where that long list above came from) you choose what charity your donation goes to.
It seems a bit harsh to boycott stores because they participate in a program where should people choose to use the program, a shopper might select a charity with anti-LGBT views. I’d wager the majority of the charities involved aren’t on the SPLC hate-group list…
Jakey
@PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS: An online petition is exactly what caused other companies to drop out, so it’s been proven to work in this case. Personally I suspect that’s not because of the number of signatures but simply because few companies seem to want to be involved with CVN once they hear how it works, whether they hear it via a petition or a single letter. Check out the comments here about Netflix and L’Occitane.
@DavyJones: Well, from what I can gather without actually signing up myself, the charities to which you can donate come from a list created by CVN; it’s a long list, but the hate groups are apparently on there because they were selected by CVN, not because you can donate to literally anything you want. I’m sure you’re right that they make up the minority of the list, but if they’re there on purpose, so what?
And if a company knows about that and continues to participate (it seems most are actually unaware of it and quickly leaving once they find out), that does mean they are deliberately allowing their own money to go to these groups, and letting it be known. Boycotting may seem harsh to you, but so is that…and at any rate, there’s no organized call for a boycott or a threat of one in the petition, just individual people deciding not to shop with these companies. I don’t know why you’d care more about that than the original reason why they don’t want to shop there.
timncguy
@DavyJones: Would you say the same thing if a shopper could select a charity with racist views? Are you a person who considers anti-gay views to be less objectionable than racist views?
Terri
Hmmm…kinda strange that Six Flags is on this list and they have “Gay Days” at each of their locations at various times during the summer. Doesn’t that kind of make them a hypocrite?
Either way, I am glad I read this story today because I was going to go to Target to do my kids back to school shopping today. Guess that’s a no-go now…I wonder, is there anything else we can do, besides not shopping or patronizing these establishments? Like one reader said, signing a petition is all fine and good, but what about the other action? What ELSE can we do? I would be interested in learning more.
timncguy
@Terri: @Terri: It’s always more effective to write a personal letter and mail it to a company executive. You could write to Target and let them know specifically that you changed your decision about where to by your back to school supplies this year because of this. Although, Target has been on the shit list since last year because of their donation to the anti-gay candidate for governor in Minnesota.
I did sign the petition. Then I went through the list and found several companies that I usually do business with. I’m going to stop. And, I’m going to write a real letter (not email) to each of them explaining my decision.
Matt F
timncguy is right on the mark. A well thought-out real letter trumps all. Emailing can be effective but does not replace the power of paper.