My local Target recently remodeled and now has a Starbucks in it. That might explain Target’s new stance right there. What else might explain it? A Facebook acquaintance posted a status update the other day about Target’s new gay pride line that said something like “As if Target could get any cooler! They now sell Pride t-shirts and all the proceeds go to gay family charities!” This from a married, female, childless, very liberal person who works in design. If it’s trendy and means people will buy more stuff, Target is THERE.

I’ve had Target forced down my throat by all kinds of people who screamed about Walmart’s atrocities. Target has never been my favorite store. Now I know why. SIGH. At least my conscience allows me a reason to stay out of Target now.

Some difficulties:

1. Target has better-quality product and better-quality employees than Wal-Mart, at least in the Atlanta area. Wal-Mart employees there are typically rude, monosyllabic, disinterested, and frequently have poor English skills.

2. Despite that, I’ll take my money away from Target…if there remains a decent alternative. But what are we to do when the last domino falls with respect to some particular moral issue, and they’re all doing it? I mean, what major corporation didn’t offer contraceptive coverage in its insurance policies, even prior to the HHS nonsense?

3. And, to add to that…how to account for and evaluate corporations for whom the record is mixed or ambiguous? We can’t all of us individually spend all our time processing and updating the data about which corporations are screwing us over, if you’ll pardon the phrase. That’s why they usually fly under the radar: Nobody can keep track. And how reliable are the assessments of the various corporations anyhow? I may hear, on a given occasion, that Such-And-Such, Inc. just started having Gay Pride Month at the office, or whatever. Is it true? Is it an urban legend encouraged by their competitors?

I may, for reasons of conscience, have to go through all this stuff. But the effort makes me cranky.

Or maybe that’s just hunger. I think I’ll go get Wendy’s. Oh, crap, I can’t. McDonald’s? Worse.

Oh, got it: A Chick-Fil-A sandwich.

(Now if there were a “Christian” version of every other company.)

I think there may be some background left out here.  I heard they were pestered into it because they had already made a similar donation to a group that backs traditional marriage.
Is the donation contingent upon clothing sales?  Granted, people may now go there specifically to buy those clothes, but they are probably the sort that would have anyway, so if it’s sales-contingent I don’t see how it is a lot worse than their donating their own money.  It is true that there was no real need for Target to insert themselves as the middleman, but it mitigates things a little in my eyes, unlike Starbucks where they really are making it an integral part of their mission. (Gail: the Target in my hometown has had a Starbucks in it ever since it opened years ago, so I doubt this is a new thing.)
R.C.: Why shouldn’t there be an unobjectionable alternative?  Maybe it’s not your calling, and it certainly isn’t mine, but I wonder if anybody out there is doing the market research?  Every major company started somewhere.

So, Target hires a designer, creates a clothing line, sets up a web page, and decides to market and sell apparel in order to support an organization that supports and advocates for same-sex “marriage” and seeks the defeat of Minnesota’s Marriage Amendment. This somehow lets Target off the hook…how?

Maybe Target’s Marketing and Community Relations board member can ask Sr. Keehan (another board member) what to do?  Does anyone else find both members on St. Thomas’ board rather ironic?

I support Starbucks and Target for respecting ALL loving families, and will make it a point to visit both as often as possible.

Today, I got an email alert from One Million Moms, with the new J.C. Penny’s advertisment that features a same sex couple & their two children for Father’s Day.  So add Penny’s to the list of department stores that are crossing the lines, trying to influence our culture towards the left.
I stopped shopping at JC Penny’s years ago, for other reasons.

But as I looked at those two little children, a boy & a girl about age 4, I wondered what is the ideal family for them, in terms of male/female influence during these growing years and even later.

Are two mothers the ideal, for children?  Two fathers?  Or is the ideal to have a mother and a father, each playing a role in the child’s life, for healthy balance. 

Even in a stable household, say two fathers that were clones of each other (they’d get along great, and for a life-time) I think children would lack a female influence in their familial lives.  It’s all about balance and all about the good of the children.  Families as a rule, want to raise children.

Our society is responsible for legislation that’s ideal for the majority, most particularly for children, that deserve a healthy family environment.  While American families are not always ideal - our LEGISLATION should reflect the ideal, and nothing short of the ideal.

Bottom line: one man married to one woman, in a covenant, for life.  It wasn’t that long ago that America thought it funny, when comedienne Tracy Ulmann introduced the comedy segment of her two fathers.  Back then, it was strange.  Never was it strange for unions to be one man and one woman.
We must never redefine marriage.  It is a slippery slope and in the long run, it’s bad for children. 

I wish all these retailers would stay neutral and stay out of the culture wars.  I used to shop a lot but because of these issues and everything is from China, I’ve cut back a lot.  I pray to detach myself from shopping.  I wish there were Christian retailers out there because we do need some things.

The previous comments bring up so many excellent points—which is why I love the NCR!
@Terah
You bring up LEGISLATION—
Marriage, which is a covenant with God, and the government do not mix—the state has no place interfering with what goes on our personal lives. Any time the government gets involved it seems to create a mess of (mostly unintended consequences) things!
@R.C
I feel your pain…
Pray for our families!

I received a brochure from Tempurpedic Mattresses that showed two men in bed.  I am sick of this nonsense.  I don’t know what this world is coming to.  We need to pray as never before for God’s Will to be done.

Marriage was instituted by God with the creation of Adam and Eve, in His image. Their ability to create life by virtue of their physical bodies completes the image of the Holy Trinity—a never-ending flow of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The family, therefore, is an image of the Holy Trinity.

Same-sex couples, by virtue of their physical bodies, cannot create life, and cannot image the covenant relationship that God designed. This is not hate, this is truth. Same-sex attracted men and women are not defined by their homosexuality, but by their dignity as man and/or woman created in the image of God. No matter how you slice and dice same-sex relationships, it is not a marriage covenant and does not image the relationship of the Holy Trinity. It cannot create life! It relies on a male-female relationship for its kids. It is a lie to call this marriage. It selfishly denies a child of this relationship the bond with a mother or a father. It is not the child that the same-sex couple is concerned with, but its own selfish needs at the expense of the child.  Children were first sacrificed to the god of abortion, and now are being sacrificed to the god of same-sex unions.

Stating the truth about this does not constitute hate toward a same-sex attracted person. But same-sex attracted people need to do some thinking on this too, and perhaps, truly seek the truth on this matter.

This is the reason why Catholic media is so important and it validates my continued support for the Register.  Time will tell if these are marketing and PR tactical errors on the part of Target and Starbucks.  I know for me they were and I will miss the coffee.  But this is about organizations conducting social engineering and its dangerous.  I worry our materialistic society, and especially young people will just start to see their messages and view of the world as the norm.  The bottom line is that these corporations see this message as a financial benefit short and/or long term or they wouldn’t do it.  It is up to US, the consumer to make them think otherwise.  Not the government and not clergy.

We should boycot these corporations. do not patronise them at all. We can live without their products

An official boycott hasn’t been declared yet, but the American Family Association has called people to action and will call for a boycott if nothing changes.  They’ve had an ongoing boycott of Home Depot for years and recently called for one against Starbucks.  Their “take action” page for Target can be found here:  http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147521799

Well Mike, you should repent and consider http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

“As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.”

The problem is, boycotts don’t work anymore. Today, nearly every company or charity in America (even Catholic ones) is supporting Planned Parenthood and/or the LGBT movement. Who is left that doesn’t? I stopped my donations to all but 2 charities; however, I can’t live without buying basic home goods and groceries.

@J: You are wrong to say the government should not be involved in upholding traditional marriage. Marriage is NOT a private contract. Read The Holy See’s Pontifical Council on Family, Marriage and De-facto Unions: 

“The family has a right to be protected and promoted by society, as many Constitutions in force in States around the whole world recognize.[21]  This is a recognition in justice of the essential function which the family based on marriage represents for society.  A duty of society, which is not only moral but civil too, corresponds to this original right of the family.  The right of the family based on marriage to be protected and promoted by society and the State must be recognized by laws.  This is a question that affects the common good.  With clear argumentation, Saint Thomas Aquinas rejects the idea that moral law and civil law can be in opposition: they are different but not in opposition; both are distinguished from one another, but they are not disassociated from one another; between them there is neither unanimity nor contradiction.[22]  As John Paul II stated: “It is important that all who are called to guide the destiny of nations recognize and strengthen the institution of marriage; in fact, marriage has a particular juridical status that recognizes the rights and duties of the spouses to one another and to their children, and families play an essential role in society, whose permanence they guarantee.  The family fosters the socialization of the young and helps curb the phenomena of violence by transmitting values and the experience of brotherhood and solidarity which it allows to become a reality each day.  In the search for justified solutions in modern society, the family cannot be put on the same level as mere associations or unions, and the latter cannot enjoy the particular rights exclusively connected with the protection of the conjugal commitment and the family based on marriage, a stable community of life and love, the result of the total and faithful gift of the spouses, open to life”.[23]

I’m all for the Free Markets. But as someone wiser than me once said: “The market has no conscience, only the conscience we give it.” It culd be said the same for Corporations that operate soley by the decisions from the Board. So, although corporations are not capable of “acting” freely, the people running them coerce the corpration to make certain bad decisions. The fault lies in the collective consciousness of the Board members.

There is no longer any room for doubt that when the subject of homosexuality comes up, people - and that very much includes some Catholic commentators and clergy, high and low - take leave of their senses.  It is the strangest phenomena I have ever witnessed in my 60+ years on earth.  All common sense, all prudence, all manly desires to protect loved ones from evil, all talk of sin goes right out the window.  When the subject is buggery, everyone loses their marbles.

Indicators of this loss of simple thinking processes include using the perfectly innocent word “gay” to describe a perversion so foul that it can bring down, and has brought down, entire civilizations.  No one wants to call this pernicious evil what it is; nobody has the courage to say that these people are behaving in ways that not even dogs would behave.  We even have the spectacle of high-ranking churchmen in the Catholic Church referring to homosexuals not as sinners who need to turn away from sin starting in the Confessional, but as people who have a different “sexual orientation”!  [Do people, dear Churchmen, have “felonious orientations” or “adulterous orientations” I wonder?]  Not even the Church can muster the guts to call this sin mortal, and one that cries to Heaven for vengeance.

That corporations like those mentioned promote policies that will eventually eliminate their customer base is something I will leave to the mental health experts but it is hardly surprising in these days of sickening pandering.  But a boycott of these creeps would certainly be in order and I for one, as of now, will never set foot in a Target store again.

Aside from that, let’s start to grow a backbone and retrieve our senses.  The only way we can deal with the homosexual juggernaut is this: if we know homosexuals in family or friendships we must do what we can to help them out of a way of life that will lead them to physical and spiritual death.  If they refuse our help and want to propagate this unspeakable evil then we have to fight them - certainly with pen.  What we must not do is to be dishonest with them by “accepting” them.  One doesn’t accept evil; one fights evil, and helps others divorce themselves from evil actions.

Another reason to shop local…corporations have so much baggage. Its good for the environment, good for the economh, and good for our health. Obviously good for our soul. And if momandpopshop does something we dont like, our dollars, or lack thereof really do make a difference.
Holly

1) In some parts of the Country, there is the Christian Yellow Pages. Business participants must sign a declaration of faith, so customers know exactly what they stand for.  I go to a Christian dentist now, from those Yellow Pages.  It’s a pleasure to see a Bible in her waiting room, to hear soothing Christian music on a CD player, and to speak freely about my faith, with like-minded people.  Bottom line - it’s the Nicene Creed that makes a person Christian.

2) I called JC Penny’s local manager this morning, and told her that (by coincidence!) the sister-in-law of the man who faciliates our Wednesday night Bible study class suggested I go to Penny’s to buy a $200 gift card for him, as a thank you from the 20 people that meets each week at our Catholic parish.  I told the manager that due to their Father’s Day ad, not only was I not going to support Penny’s, but I would be telling everyone on Wednesday night *why* I would not buy from Penny’s, as long as they continue the way of Target and Home Depot.

3) I liked Starbuck’s too, but have been boycotting them, since I heard of their left-leaning ways.  Frankly, I buy coffee at Cost Plus World Market now, in the bean & grind it there.  Italian Roast is my favorite, if you like strong coffee.  On Wednesday, you can get double stamps, to get bags of free coffee quicker.  Saves money!  Why support Starbucks?

4) We’re getting a Chick-filet soon in our area and I’m excited!!  Nice Catholic family that owns it, I think, & closed on Sunday. A great idea.

5) Other than Target, Home Depot, Starbucks and JC Penny’s, are there any other large companies that are on a “Do not support” list?  How about Orchard Supply, Lowe’s, Macy’s?  Are they okay?  I need to get that gift card.

6) Last, a heavier topic:

People talk about ‘love’, and why we ought not discriminate.  But not only is it not loving to place children in a family where they do not have the benefits of BOTH mother and father (male AND female influence), but…..........I have heard that the act of homosexual behavior, men with men, has actually damaged the rectums of men, after those parts have been used in a manner in which they simply were not designed.  I’ve heard that men are often rendered incontinent.

That may draw criticism, or correction.  But it most certainly deserves discussion and thought.  How can long-term physical harm ever be considered loving?  It’s not.  Even in a politically correct world, it’s not loving.  Neither is passing on AIDS, and that too, is transmitted mostly from sexual activity against the known word of God.

I, too, am ready to “come out of the closet” and stop tap dancing around, trying not to offend with my belief that homosexual BEHAVIOR is unnatural and having it shoved into our lives at every turn is offensive. 
Homosexual behavior and lifestyle is unnatural and sinful. We need to fight back and realize that we are being steam-rolled by a very well-planned, vicious agenda to re-define good and evil.

Dan and TW - Great posts!  To ‘identify’ with selfish and harmful behavior that totally demoralizes humanity is absurd.  If rampant sodomy perpetrated on women and children were to become popular and publicized, people would be up in arms, (and this destructive and painful act of violence can be done to ‘straight’ women and children). So… why is it ok for a bigger or stronger or older man to sodomize another man?  This is lunacy - disgusting and unhealthy.  It is time to be honest with ourselves about this crazy ‘gay’ movement.  Enough is enough.

> Marriage between one man and one woman is worth preserving.

Verily!

Just as important as supporting ALL marriage, ESPECIALLY, including marriage between two men and ESPECIALLY including marriage between two women.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Also,

“What’s good for a goose is good for another goose.”

Also,

“What’s good for a gander is good for another gander.”

This raging against corporations from an organization that supports criminal behavior and pursecutes those who try to expose it. Ludicrous.