Gay Marriage Foes Seek Corporate Neutrality
Great Kare11 Story on how “gay marriage foes” are seeking corporate neutrality.
It turns out that The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is at it again. This time, they’ve sent letters to 50 of Minnesota’s largest companies asking for them to remain neutral on the marriage amendment.
According to NOM’s Jonathan Baker:
What we’re asking businesses to do is to create a work environment that welcoming to all of the employees. And they can do that through adopting a neutral stance over the Minnesota Marriage amendment.
In the clip, Tom Horner (who ran for govenor in 2010) reminds us that this issue has much larger impacts to business is Minnesota than NOM would have you believe; it’s about attracting a talented workforce and the economics of diversity:
A recent study showed the Twin Cities metropolitan area is about 5th or 6th in the country in attracting these kinds of workers… Not just gays and lesbians, but all educated workers who want to live in a community that welcomes diversity, that embraces diversity.
I’ll find the text from the letter NOM sent to the 50 businesses and post it shortly.
Starbucks and Gay Marriage
Well, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks for those watching the gay marriage saga in the US. Earlier this year, Starbucks came out in support of marriage equality in Washington State. Since that time, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), has launched into attack mode against Starbucks (you remember NOM, that crazy organization that promotes ex-gay therapy and funnels millions of dollars into states that are facing marriage amendments, yeah, that NOM).
At a Starbucks’ shareholders meeting earlier this month, NOM’s director of corporate fairness project, Jonathan Baker, asked about the decision to support marriage equality. When CEO Howard Schultz shared that it was in no way a difficult decision for the board to make, NOM didn’t like that.
As a result, a “Dump Starbucks” campaign was launched asking for signatures from those also outraged at Starbucks’ decision to support marriage equality for same-sex couples. As of April 1, the pledge has received over 25,000 pledges.
Ok, so 25,000 is a lot of people threatening to dump Starbucks. On the other hand, another campaign was launched via SumOfUs.org to thank Starbucks for their support of gay marriage. I’m happy to share that as of April 1, this petition has received over 463,000 signatures. Nearly 20 times the number of signatures that the NOM-supported petition has received.
At the end of the day, the message is clear: Big Business can speak out in support of marriage equality and not fear retaliation. Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson shared that the organization is “not seeing any impact” in regards to the boycott. In fact, the SumOfUs petition and social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have been all abuzz with people standing up for Starbucks. While not necessarily the plan, that’s pretty good PR. Supporting gay marriage actually may end up helping them sell more of their delicious treats.
Note: You can say “thank you” to Strabucks in many ways. Stop by your local store and thank your baristas, share this post with your friends on social media sites or simply sign your name to the SumOfUs page and help reach the goal of 500,000 signatures.
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Tweets
- Check out what a visitor to the site asked me to pass along to Father Mike Tegeder. RT if you agree. #minnesota #voteno
http://t.co/4iqhrFX211/09/2012 - #Minnesota nice? Yeah, we #voteno twice! Congratulations to to Minnesota for standing on the right side of history!11/07/2012
- #Minnesota #marriageamendment 78% reporting. #voteno at 50%; yes side has 49%. It's going to be a while before we call this one...11/07/2012
- #Minnesota #marriageamendment 47% reporting. Spread narrows. #voteno side still at 49%; yes side has increased their support to 47%.11/07/2012
- Check out what a visitor to the site asked me to pass along to Father Mike Tegeder. RT if you agree. #minnesota #voteno
