Starbucks

Dear MoveOn member,

We thought this message from our friends at SumOfUs was important enough to pass along.

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Dear Friend,

Starbucks stuck its neck out to publicly support the right of all people to marry, regardless of the gender of their partner.

Now it is under attack by the ironically named, ultra-conservative "National Organization for Marriage."¹ Already more than 20,000 NOM members have pledged to boycott Starbucks, and NOM is even threatening to run ads against Starbucks in 55 countries.

Let's blow the right wing out of the water by getting more than ten times as many consumers to thank Starbucks for standing up for gay marriage.

Join us in showing our support for Starbucks by signing our giant Thank You card. If 200,000 of us sign it, we'll deliver it to Starbucks executives to give them moral support to keep standing up for equality.

NOM is targeting Starbucks because the company recently stood up publicly to support gay marriage legislation in their home state of Washington.² When it passed, the bill's lead sponsor said that support from business convinced moderate legislators to vote for it. Without support from companies like Starbucks, the gay marriage law might have failed.³

Now, if Starbucks backtracks because of opposition, then it will set the gay rights struggle back to a time when big corporations couldn't come out and support gay people for fear of public backlash. Even worse, it will embolden anti-gay activists to target other companies that support gay rights, and serve as a lesson to other companies to stay out of the fight for equal rights entirely.

Starbucks isn't perfect—and in the future we'll probably be asking them to improve their policies on other issues. But it's a big deal when a giant multinational corporation with no particular connection to the gay community realizes that there are real business benefits—from better employees to happier customers—to standing up for progressive ideals. And we can't just criticize corporations when they do bad. We also want to encourage them when they do good.

Let's show that supporting equal rights is good business. Click here to add your message to our Thank You card:

http://pol.moveon.org/thankstarbucks/?id=38067-10220574-g6AIOCx&t=2

Thanks for everything you do!

–Claiborne, Kaytee, and the rest of us

P.S. Breaking News: NOM had a strategic memo released against their will this week, where they plainly state their goal of  driving a "wedge between gays and blacks."⁴ They even wanted to delay Latino "assimilation" so they could make "support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity—a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation."⁵ Driving wedges between people and groups is NOM's stock in trade. That's why this isn't just about Starbucks, it's about standing up against these divisive tactics. Click here to thank Starbucks.

Sources:

1. "Anti-gay marriage group wants Starbucks boycott," The Seattle Times, March 21, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=273206&id=38067-10220574-g6AIOCx&t=4

2. "Starbucks supports gay marriage legislation," The Seattle Times, January 24, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=273207&id=38067-10220574-g6AIOCx&t=5

3. "Business playing key role in U.S. drive for gay marriage," The Montreal Gazette, March 22, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=273208&id=38067-10220574-g6AIOCx&t=6

4. "Top 10 Highlights From NOM's Race-Wedging, Donor-Hiding, Victim-Playing Confidential Strategies," ThinkProgress, March 27, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=273455&id=38067-10220574-g6AIOCx&t=7

5. Ibid.

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