WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign on Wednesday fired back at the National Organization for Marriage, calling their “Dump Starbucks” campaign a typical “temper tantrum,” and called on consumers to support Starbucks for its decision to support same-sex marriage.
The NOM launched its boycott of Starbucks after CEO Howard Schultz defended the company’s decision to publicly support the marriage equality legislation in Washington state.
“NOM is falling back on their typical tactics. Starbucks has been a vocal supporter of marriage equality for loving same-sex couples – views that are in-line with the majority of Americans – and that enrages NOM,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese, in a statement.
“As a result, NOM is throwing a temper-tantrum and encouraging its few supporters to intentionally harm the economic well-being of Starbucks employees all over the world.”
Starbucks was one of several major U.S. corporations with headquarters or major operations in Washington state that supported the legislation, including Alcoa, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and Vulcan.
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“People like Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher no doubt use products from the dozens of consumer-facing brands that have come out in support of marriage equality and against Proposition 8 on a daily basis,” added Solmonese.
“They include Microsoft, Apple, Google, Alcoa, Nike, and top executives from companies like Yahoo and Facebook. Nonetheless, it appears NOM launched their ‘Dump Starbucks’ campaign on Facebook. Do they not have any Microsoft software in their office? Do they ban employees from owning iPhones?”
NOM claimed that the majority of Americans and “virtually every consumer” define marriage as between one man and one woman, a statement HRC called untrue and misleading, citing the most recent Gallup poll that showed that 53 percent of Americans support marriage equality.
The NOM campaign alleges that “Starbucks has declared a culture war on all people of faith (and millions of others) who believe that the institution of marriage as one man and one woman is worth preserving. A portion of every cup of coffee purchased at a Starbucks anywhere in the world goes to fund this corporate assault on marriage.”
Starbucks said it made the decision to support same-sex marriage “through the lens of humanity and being the kind of company that embraces diversity.”
HRC has launched a petition calling on consumers to support Starbucks and take a stand against NOM’s anti-equality campaign.
