AFA Chairman Don Wildmon writes:

AFA ends boycott: McDonald’s agrees to changes

October 9, 2008

Dear Pro-family Americans,

Great news! Because of AFA supporters like you, McDonald’s has told AFA they will remain neutral in the culture war regarding homosexual marriage. AFA is ending the boycott of McDonald’s. As you know, AFA called for the boycott in May after McDonald’s joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).

McDonald’s said McDonald’s Vice President Richard Ellis has resigned his position on the board of NGLCC and that his seat on the board will not be replaced. McDonald’s also said that the company has no plans to renew their membership in NGLCC when it expires in December.

In an e-mail to McDonald’s franchised owners the company said, “It is our policy to not be involved in political and social issues. McDonald’s remains neutral on same sex marriage or any ‘homosexual agenda’ as defined by the American Family Association.”

We appreciate the decision by McDonald’s to no longer support political activity by homosexual activist organizations. You might want to thank your local McDonald’s manager.

Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

Take Action!

• Sign the online Boycott McDonald’s petition.
• Forward this to family and friends and ask them to sign the petition.
• Print and distribute the Boycott McDonald’s petition.

August 13, 2008

McDonald’s has done it again. First, the company paid $20,000 to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and to have a seat on the board of directors. Next, McDonald’s refused a request to remain neutral in the culture war by choosing to promote the gay agenda. Then McDonald’s accused those opposing the gay agenda, including same-sex “marriage,” of being motivated by hate.

Now we learn that McDonald’s sponsors training for homosexuals on how to promote their agenda among corporations from the inside. Out & Equal™ Workplace Advocates is a national organization devoted to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the workplace. One of its primary purposes is to train employees how to aggressively promote homosexuality within the company they work for, all the way to the corporate boardroom. Part of last year’s Out & Equal Summit in Washington, DC, (sponsored by McDonald’s) was an organized march into congressional offices demanding same-sex “marriage” laws be passed.

At the bottom of McDonald’s half-page ad in the Out & Equal Summit booklet is this statement: “From neighborhood to neighborhood, coast to coast and around the world, McDonald’s is proud to celebrate diversity” [homosexuality].

Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

The pro-family movement must re-engage in the corporate arena, or there is no hope of recovering moral sanity in the larger culture. To start with we can demand strict neutrality in corporate “diversity” and giving programs, and an end to one-sided tolerance seminars that are in reality training sessions in “gay” ideology. — Peter LaBarbera

Excerpted from Queer Inc, by Marc Gunther, published Nov 30, 2006, by Fortune:

…A platoon of Raytheon employees wearing identical blue-and-black bowling shirts, pins with the company’s logo and black pants proudly walked the halls of this fall’s convention of Out & Equal, an organization that brings together the networks of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people – GLBT, in the argot of the moment – that have taken root at America’s big companies.

For three days in Chicago, with about 1,700 delegates from other companies, the 67 members of Raytheon’s GLBT network could attend workshops with such titles as The Cost of Transgender Health Benefits, Breaking Through the Lavender Ceiling and Male-on-Male Sexual Harassment: An Emerging Issue…

When Justin Nelson was trying to get the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce off the ground in 2003, IBM offered its support. “If they hadn’t joined, there wouldn’t be a chamber,” Nelson says. Big Blue was followed by Wells Fargo, Motorola, Intel, American Express and recently, Wal-Mart…

Some companies are grappling with how to manage employees switching from one sex to another. American Airlines and its HR people helped a 58-year-old pilot – an ex-Marine and Vietnam combat veteran – go from being Robert to Bobbi. Energy giant Chevron published “Transgender@Chevron,” an eight-page guide to the issues that come up when a worker changes gender identity, ranging from the bureaucratic (don’t forget to get a new security badge) to the everyday (when it’s appropriate to move from the men’s room to the ladies’ room or vice versa)…

This is how workplace changes typically happen at big companies – from the inside out. Gay and lesbian employees come out of the closet. They find one another. They organize. They enlist straight allies. And they take their concerns to top managers.

These gay networks customarily meet in company facilities, use the company intranet, and receive financial support…

• Among corporations, IBM is the No. 1 financial supporter of gay rights groups in the U.S.
• To export its gay-friendly culture, IBM supports employee GLBT groups in 23 countries, including Singapore, Slovakia and Colombia. There’s plenty to do: In 80 countries homosexual acts are illegal, as they were in parts of the U.S. until a few years ago.
• Last year IBM convened a group of gay college students at the Human Rights Campaign to form a national organization of students in science and technology.
• IBM persuaded Dr. Marci Bowers, one of the world’s leading sex-reassignment surgeons and herself a transgendered person, to participate in the company’s health insurance program.

…the truth is that for the past 15 years, boycotts or no boycotts, corporate America has been moving in only one direction, and at a pretty rapid pace.

Do you recall that the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel fired gay workers back in 1991 for not having “normal heterosexual values”? Well, a few years ago, when a Kodak employee sent an e-mail to co-workers objecting to the company’s endorsement of National Coming Out day as “disgusting and offensive,” he was the one who was fired when he declined to apologize. He was entitled to his beliefs, the company explained, but his behavior was not aligned with Kodak’s values.

So it’s clear where big business is going. What’s interesting is to watch it pull the rest of the country along. It turns out that the most important factor shaping people’s feelings about gay issues is not their age or even their religion – although those do matter – but whether they have relatives, friends or co-workers who are gay.

Continue reading at CNN…

…Wal-Mart hired Witeck-Combs Communications, a marketing shop known for its work targeting the gay and lesbian consumer market, according to Bob Witeck, president of the Washington-based firm…

Founded in 1993, the eight-person agency’s client list boasts automotive brands Volvo, Land Rover, and Jaguar, in addition to American Airlines, Citigroup and at least a dozen nonprofits, such as the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Witeck-Combs, a member of the NGLCC, is also a participant in the organization’s supplier-diversity initiative, or SDI, a certification program launched this year and modeled after minority- and women-supplier development programs. Corporate participants already include IBM, American Airlines, Motorola and American Express.

…As part of the Wal-Mart Stores partnership with the NGLCC, Dee Breazeale, VP-divisional merchandising, Sam’s Club Jewelry, has joined the organization’s Corporate Advisory Council and Wal-Mart will sponsor two of the organization’s annual conferences.

Mr. Nelson said Wal-Mart approached the organization four months ago, expressing interest in the supplier-diversity initiative. “The expectation is that Wal-Mart will encourage their core suppliers — the P&G’s, the Johnson & Johnson’s and the Gillette’s — to also diversify their revenue streams to include LGTB businesses,” Mr. Nelson said.

He said the retailer is “working right now on providing domestic-partnership benefits” and that Wal-Mart may soon join the 261 members of the Fortune 500 that offer the benefits.

The steps being taken by Wal-Mart are the strongest signal yet that the company may be taking a permanent stand on the side of gay rights…

Continue reading at AFA…

…Wal-Mart, which will pay the chamber $25,000 annually,
has agreed to conduct workshops for gay and lesbian business owners on how to break into the Wal-Mart supplier ranks, said Justin Nelson, chamber president and co-founder.

Continue reading in The Chicago Tribune…

Wal-Mart has announced an odd new domestic “partnership.” They have teamed up with an outfit called the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Wal-Mart has caved in, obviously, to the pressure tactics such groups apply to large corporations.

This is outrageous. Wal-Mart has made its billions by serving the needs of rural communities throughout America. It has never discriminated against homosexuals who want to purchase their products at low prices. Nor has it discriminated in hiring against homosexuals. But that is not enough. The homosexual lobby demands that Wal-Mart grovel. They demand that Wal-Mart take sides in the great cultural clash over marriage.

Won’t you please join me in opposing this offensive move? You can download and print the accompanying pdf file and drop it off at the Customer Service Desk at your nearest Wal-Mart. You don’t need to confront anyone. Let them know you know what they’re up to-and you don’t appreciate it.

Is Wal-Mart passing the wrong kind of ‘values’ on to its customers? It’s no secret that Walmart Stores, Inc. has been under vicious attack in recent months by leftists and union activists due to its unwavering support of right-to-work policies and its refusal to allow unions to organize in its stores. But now it seems Wal-Mart is additionally hell-bent on alienating its heretofore greatest and most vocal supporters: Conservatives, Christians, and Traditionalists.

Matt Barber, Corporate Outreach Director for Americans for Truth, expressed his disappointment with Wal-Mart today for further capitulating to the powerful homosexual lobby by recently partnering with the “National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce,” an extremely influential homosexual organization steadfastly devoted to furthering the ‘gay’ agenda within corporate America.

Click here to read NGLCC’s announcement for yourself

Contact Wal-Mart by phone at 1-800-WALMART or by e-mail

“It’s a real shame, and I think people who value traditional marriage and the Biblical model of human sexuality should sit up and take notice of Wal-Mart’s recent support of radical pro-homosexual, anti-Christian groups and policies that seek to destroy the time-honored institutions of marriage and family, and further aim to silence proponents of traditional family values,” said Barber.

While understandably flying under the radar, Wal-Mart’s British subsidiary recently introduced a “gay wedding” line of products, and Wal-Mart corporate has inexplicably re-defined “family” in its corporate policies to include sexual partners of the same gender. It has also added employees who choose to engage in dangerous homosexual behaviors to its anti-discrimination policies.

“Of course nobody advocates harassment of anyone in the workplace for anything,” said Barber; “but my concern is that Wal-Mart’s recent company policy officially endorsing and promoting the homosexual lifestyle, now discriminates against employees who happen to believe, as Judeo/Christian tradition holds, that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that homosexual behavior is both immoral and unhealthy. What if Wal-Mart decided to hold a “gay-day” like other companies have done? Would pro-family employees then be fired for ‘discrimination’ if they refused to participate because it violated their sincerely held religious beliefs?”

Peter LaBarbera, Founder and President of Americans for Truth added: “Wal-Mart has always been a favorite of God-fearing Middle American customers who hold traditional family values. I’m very surprised that Wal-Mart would now bite the hand that feeds it and thumb its nose at those very customers. It seems to me that Wal-Mart should reconsider its unsavory alliance with these extremist homosexual activists in today’s heated and polarizing culture war. It risks entirely alienating the vast majority of its customer base. Perhaps this great corporation with such an impressive history should play Switzerland in the culture war, return to a position of neutrality, and get back to doing what it has always done best – selling high quality products at the lowest prices available.”

Americans for Truth indicated its intent to further investigate and report on Wal-Mart’s recent endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle, and to request a meeting with Wal-Mart officials to ensure that its family-values employees will not be discriminated against in light of Wal-Mart’s growing support of the anti-family, anti-Christian homosexual lobby.

“We’ll talk with Wal-Mart,” said Barber; “and then determine whether it’s necessary for us to further educate Wal-Mart customers – and employees – on a wide-spread basis about the new and not so impressive left-wing values now offered to Wal-Mart shoppers.”