This report by KARE-11 includes an interview with Jonathan Baker of NOM's Corporate Fairness Project:
A national group working to ban gay marriage has asked Minnesota's largest corporations to remain neutral on the issue.
The National Organization for Marriage sent letters to the state's 50 largest companies, as well as the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, asking them to remain neutral on the marriage issue.
Gay marriage is already against the law in Minnesota, but voters will decide in November whether to place that ban in the state Constitution. The amendment would define marriage as solely between one man and one woman.
"The corporations all have customers and employees that come down on both sides," Jonathan Baker of NOM told KARE.
"They have customers and employees that want to support the traditional definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman, and customers and employees that would like to extend the definition of marriage to couples of the same gender."
The Target Corporation found itself taking some heat from opponents of gay marriage when it launched a pride tee-shirt campaign in honor of Gay Pride Month, which is June, selling a variety on designs online for $12.99 a piece.
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How disingenuous of NOM. If Target were to support the amendment, they would be singing Target's praises and the word neutrality would never come up. Nor would the thought that Target has customers and employees on both sides. NOM only cares (or likes to appear to care) about fairplay when that are disfavored.
Of course Companies are now legally "People" when it comes to Politics and Amendment's Thanks to the Supreme Court and their Citizen's United Ruling. There are Companies that remain "Neutral". There are some that support both sides. There are one's that support only one side or the other. Companies should remain neutral on all Political Issues. They should not support either side. I saw the Kare11 news last night, and the only part it lacked is it was focused mostly on the Companies that are against the Amendment. To be fair, the Companies that support the Amendment should come under the same level of scrutiny and be publicly told to remain neutral as well.
The other issue is a Majority of my fellow Minnesotans really dislike outside interest groups from any side of an issue interfering in what we do in Minnesota, or telling us what to do.
Corporations would be well advised to either stay neutral or else support the winning side of the argument
KARE-11 did a remarkably good job on this story. They just presented the facts and interviewed people on both sides. They didn't interject any personal bias. Good work.
@Pete
Target took the brunt of attacks and was the victim of various boycotts from left-wing activists for endorsing GOP candidates who they dubbed him as "anti-gay".
I have no problem if individuals such as CEO's take political stances, but if they do it on behalf of their entire company(like Starbucks)...then we have a problem.
Will NOM be asking Chick-Fil-A to remain neutral?
Also, Gay Pride isn't explicitly marriage-related. Gay Pride Month isn't a marriage-based idea.
One is usually proud when one accomplishes something. What have they accomplished? Oh, I remember, they CHOSE a homosexual identity, and they're proud of their choice. Got it.
You don't have to "accomplish" something to be proud of who you are, Overcame. Though, if you did, I'd say that I'm proud of surviving bigotry, intolerance, and violence every day.
Well, Garrett, I understand that homosexuals face many problems, but your chosen path of attempting to destroy marriage was a real bad decision.
The last paragraph is quite telling. Pride isn't about the marriage issue, at its core it's about the dignity of LGBT people in general. So NOM is not only suggesting that companies such as Target should remain neutral on marriage equality, they want them to remain neutral on the basic human dignity of an entire segment of the population. The anti-lobby is demanding that corporations treat the idea that LGBT people do not deserve to live with dignity as if it's equally valid as the idea that they do. You're entitled to have an opinion but you're not entitled to have that opinion validated by society.
There have been cases of Christians fired for not supporting ssm. If you Gays were truly fair you would denounce this.
Poster #9 said:
One is usually proud when one accomplishes something. What have they accomplished? Oh, I remember, they CHOSE a homosexual identity, and they're proud of their choice. Got it.
The only thing they have accomplished is commiting sodomy, anal sex, and causing an increase in AIDS in society. What kind of a choice is that to be proud of. I remember when parades for pride were for great things accomplished like winning the gold medal in the Olympics. Now the homosexuals have rendered pride meaningless.
"You're entitled to have an opinion but you're not entitled to have that opinion validated by society. "
Precisely so, 14th.
Hence the 33 consecutive defeats of marriage corruption by the people of the United States.
Great News! General Mills opposes SSM ban.
I guess NOMers will have to eat Kellogg's.
Or not http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/05/kelloggs-defends-jon-stewart-tells-catholic-league-to-snap-crackle-pop-off-video/
Actually, this NOM'er won't be eating any Kellogg's and just called them to say so.
Thanks for the link, ZJuice!
Ok, so a company decides to publicly announce that it's against a ban on so-called SS"M." What does that accomplish? "Well, if General Mills is against it so am I," doesn't seem to be a likely response by the public.
No, what it accomplishes is that General Mills will get some of the "Gay Money" that is apparently in abundance. It's a business decision, though a crap shoot of sorts.
The fact is that the homosexuals, who are the ones seeking affirmation of their lifestyle, are actively looking for news articles and political statements that support their interests, and the homosexual media is only too happy to feed their hunger. The average Joe, OTH, doesn't really pay that much attention to homosexual articles or statements by companies on so-called SS"M," because it really doesn't appear to impact them.
So the homosexuals and their gay money rush out to support the companies that pay lip service to them, and the vast majority of the country just continues to do what they always do. Or at least that's the gamble that these companies are willing to take.
The good news is that this is just more evidence of the political power of the homosexuals and relegates their "class" to a rational basis review in the courts.
I will not patronize any business that supports homosexual marriage ever . and they should bring back don`t ask don`t tell in the Military and everlywhere else for that matter .