Caveat Emptor: Your Purchases May Be Working Against You
In the blog “The Little Cookie With The Big Agenda,” we saw how a food giant like Kraft supports gay rights. With just a striking visual of rainbow creme filling, standing in for the typical Oreo vanilla creme, its advertising campaign, debuted during Gay Pride, became a symbol of solidarity with the GLBT community. Other behemoths such as Target showed their conviction toward gay rights by selling out T-shirts for Gay Pride. The coffee Titan Starbucks has opposed Washington’s anti-gay amendment. Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer each donated $100,000 to support the campaign to approve Referendum 74 and keep same-sex marriage intact. Google has a campaign for marriage equality with the message “Legalize Love” meant to debunk homophobia in nations where homosexuality is considered illegal. Other gay-friendly businesses? American Apparel, American Airlines, Apple, Boeing, IBM, Levi’s, and Nike.
Know Where Your $ is Going
But not every business giant is an ally of the GLBT community. If you knew how the powers at the following companies voted about Proposition 8 or eliminated domestic partnership benefits for same-sex couples, you may not want to give them your business.
The following list of gay-UNfriendly companies was compiled by the Human Rights Campaign, Guy Dads, Queers United, Change.org. and can be found on Pink Panthers, the no 1 Tumblr blog for people focused on queer pride and the fight for equal rights:
A-1 Self Storage Company
Auto Zone Inc.
CBRL Group Inc. (Cracker Barrel restaurants)
Chick-Fil-A
Cinemark
Dish Network
Domino’s Pizza
Exxon Mobil
Gold’s Gym
Golfland Entertainment Centers
Insure.com
Manchester Grand Resorts
Mejer Inc.
Outside Pride.com
Request Foods
Salvation Army
Urban Outfitters
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
What You Can Do To Make Offending Companies RETHINK Their Policies.
- Educate your friends and family about the company. Boycott!
- Blog, post, twitter about the company’s inequality.
- Write a letter to the company’s management explaining your reason for not doing business with them anymore.
- Write an editorial to your newspaper editor and the editor of the newspaper in the town closest to the company.
I am just finding out about how many companies are supporting gay agendas. From what I can tell if I boycott them all, I’ll have to eat the grass in my front yard. I have already written to some but the ones I started with like Safeway, Walmart, Penneys,Pepsico, are all so large why would they care if a handful of people boycott these companies that are global. They don’t need our money. I hate to know that my dollars are going to support something like this. What is your advice.
Sheila, I would follow the advice in the last paragraph. Use the media for your message that their discriminatory policies are not acceptable and that you will boycott their business. Thanks for commenting. Wesley
That’s what I get for not ready the whole article. Never mind.