The American Family Association is really obsessed with Walmart's decisions to court gay customers, so much so that it is willing to completely distort reality in order to whoop up its mostly mindless followers into an anti-gay frenzy. Look at this Action Alert, where they make it look as though Walmart made the decision to donate a huge amount of money to a gay rights group:
In a show of support to help homosexuals legalize same-sex marriage, Wal-Mart has agreed to automatically donate 5% of online sales directly to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender People. The cash donation will come from ALL online purchases made at Wal-Mart through the homosexual group's Web site...
With this agreement, Wal-Mart made clear their support for the homosexual movement was a total commitment to the cause.
Many observers feel it would have been a wise business decision for Wal-Mart to remain neutral in the cultural battle over homosexual marriage. But this was an ideological decision by Wal-Mart, not a business decision. Wal-Mart decided to give the promotion of homosexual marriage their full support.
Are your BS detectors going off? They should be. This "agreement" is nothing more than a standard affiliate agreement that Walmart neither initiated nor decided to do; it's automatic. I have an affiliate agreement, for example, with Amazon, as do many bloggers. If I write about a book and someone follows a link from here to the Amazon site to buy a book I link to, I get a small percentage of the sale price of that book. Such relationships are automatic; anyone can get them, you just sign up on their webpage.
This "agreement" the AFA is calling a deliberate decision by Walmart is precisely the same arrangement. Walmart did not choose to negotiate this arrangement with a gay rights group. Anyone, including the AFA, could click on the same link on the Walmart webpage and initiate the exact same 5% arrangement under precisely the same terms. If the AFA did that, would they then claim that Walmart was proving its support for their agenda? Obviously not. That just goes to show you how stupid and hypocritical they are willing to be to advance their silly, authoritarian agenda.
- Log in to post comments
Since 2002 the homosexual group has made a total of $4.17 from their "agreement" with Wal-Mart. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/business/stories/2006/11/10/1111bizwalmart.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=6
I must disagree, I think they would put out a press release saying, "Walmart shows AFA support, agrees to donate 5% of sales to help the AFA to promote morality."
They just decided to use Walmart as a bad guy and not a good guy at this time. And stop giving them idea huh! :-)
MR SAM WOULD ROLL OVER IN HIS GRAVE IF HE KNEW HOW HIS KIDS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS WHERE RUNNING THE SHOW.JUST THINK HOW YOUR SOPPORTING GAYS AND ANY CHURCH WITH ANY MORALS LEFT WILL QUIT WALMAT. THAT WILL COVER SEVERAL MILLION PEOPLE . THANKS FOR A REASON TO QUIT SHOPING THERE, AND ANOTHER THING WHAT HAPPENED TO BUY AMERICAN !!!
GARY, you show yourself to be both ignorant and a bigot in one post. Good job!
We are all in the middle of a culture war. American was founded with the right of free speech. There are those forces at work in our society to remove this right on certain topics. There is an atmosphere of "fear" to say anything against homosexual marriage, yet "fear" is what the homosexual population is asking protection from - is this right? In American we should be free to speak our minds and spend our money according to our beliefs. Call us names if you want, but while I still can, I choose to exercise my freedom. It is my money. Walmart has made a decision as a company to make a political statement. As an American consumer I have chosen to not support that statement. I still shop at Walmart but have chosen to reduce my spending by 50% over the Christmas season. Others with common beliefs are making the same decision. Those that don't agree have the right to spend 50% more at Walmart. I promise not to call them nasty names or promote "fear" when they exercise that right. This is American. Burn a flag, stage a protest, help a person in need, take a stand - while you can.
Lisa wrote:
Any notion of an atmosphere of fear to say anything against homosexual marriage is purely a figment of your imagination. For crying out loud, some 30 states have passed resolutions against gay marriage in the last few years. The op-ed pages, magazines and webpages are filled to the rim with jeremiads against gay marriage. Do you know of anyone who has been arrested for it? Of course not.
As for your right to not shop at Walmart and to speak out against them, you're absolutely correct - you have that right and I've defended it vociferously. But you're right to act like a bigot also means my right to call you one. Don't like that? Then stop being one.