Determined to clean up its image as a fence-straddler on LGBT rights, the Target corporation has come out in full support of same-sex marriage in Wisconsin, signing an amicus brief to the US Seventh District Court that strongly favors a repeal of the state’s current ban on same-sex marriage.
Target, the second-largest discount retailer in North America behind Walmart, joins Starbucks, Intel and Apple as the latest megacorporation to flex its muscle in the fight for marriage equality.
From the company’s headquarters in Minneapolis, Executive Vice President Jodee Kozlak announced the news in an official blog post on the company’s website. It reads in part:
It is in that same spirit that, this week, Target joined several other national companies to sign on to an amicus brief in support of marriage equality. The brief is currently pending in the Seventh Circuit.
As our leadership team discussed signing on, we took time to consider the bigger questions at hand. This brief is important, as the issues it addresses have significant impact on businesses. But it is more than that and we agreed that now is the right time to more directly share our views on this issue.
It is our belief that everyone should be treated equally under the law, and that includes rights we believe individuals should have related to marriage.
…
We believe that everyone – all of our team members and our guests – deserve to be treated equally. And at Target we are proud to support the LGBT community.
Target’s home state of Minnesota became the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2013. The filing of the above brief in Wisconsin comes after state officials pumped the breaks on marriage equality earlier this month to debate how much longer they can hold out their bigotry.
If history has taught us anything, it won’t be much longer.
Cam
It wasn’t ever the board of Target, it was their crazy CEO who not only funneled corporate donations to politicians tied to ferociously anti-gay groups, but then lied and said he wouldn’t do it again, and then did it.
After the boycott started Wall Street stepped in with several Mutual funds etc… saying they were going to dump Target stock if they didn’t alter their rules so that a CEO couldn’t do things like this in the future.
So if the CEO has been marginalized to a certain extent good for Target, the real question is, since a CEO is there to make sure your brand performs well and has a good public face, why keep a guy on that did such damage to your brand? It seems like CEO’s practically have to kill somebody to get fired.
SpunkyBunks
Target is getting desperate to attract any customers at this point. The gays haven’t forgotten that whole mess when their management supported politicians that were extremely anti-gay but pro-business. Also, that whole fiasco with stolen credit accounts also drove away their regular customers.
This company is the poster child of extreme greed gone wrong. You can’t screw over your customers just to get bigger tax breaks when you’re already extremely profitable. Now they’re doomed.
Target will be closing lots of stores soon due to their poor reputation and the poor economy.
Ottoman
@Cam: the CEO is gone actually. steinhafel left after the Target data breach scandal. I wonder if they’ve renamed the Steinhafel Building housing Targets back office in India yet.
Spunky, in addition to your points, both Target and Walmart are really struggling.Target is down 16% in sales since last year due to online shopping and more people going to dollar stores. Both are now investing heavily in their websites to compete with Amazon and both are toying with smaller stores in big cities. But as is, target is a dinosaur staring up at the comet.
Vartan X.
How about stopping giving money to anti-gay groups and politicians and then we’ll talk about ‘love for gays’.
Cam
@Ottoman:
Thank you for the info! I had heard he was under the gun because of the data breach but not that he had been dumped.
Thad1527
This is a positive step! Target opened a huge new store in King of Prussia, PA, last month and it seems like an instant hit, despite competition from the East’s largest mall a mile away. My Minnesota friends have been leery of Target because of their political donations. I’m taking this as a sign things have changed.
Ruhlmann
They’re tanking in Canada.