Conservative plan to protest Wal-Mart
NEW YORK - Long under fire from the left, Wal-Mart is now a target of Christian conservatives urging shoppers to boycott the huge retailer’s post-Thanksgiving sales because of its low-key outreach to some gay-rights organizations. One group, the American Family Association, is asking supporters to stay away from Wal-Mart on Friday and Saturday — two of the busiest shopping days of the year. Another group, Operation Save America, plans prayer-and-preaching rallies outside many Wal-Mart stores on Friday. The corporate actions that triggered the protests were little different from those taken by scores of major companies in recent years — Wal-Mart paid $25,000 this summer to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and donated $60,000 to Out and Equal, which promotes gay-rights advances in the workplace. Conservative leaders viewed these actions as a betrayal of Wal-Mart’s traditions, which have included efforts to weed out magazines with racy covers and CDs with explicit lyrics.
Man…much more of this crap, and my head’s going to explode. Now Wal-Mart, previously the darling of the Religious Right, is being boycotted for being insufficiently hateful and dismissive of homosexuals? Social Conservatives really DO eat their young, don’t they?
Sometimes I wonder; if these far-right religious nutjobs didn’t have a bogeyman to hate, they’d no longer have any purpose in life, would they? Sure, they could spend their free time worshipping the God they profess to love, but it’s so much more enjoyable and rewarding to hate, revile, and oppress people whose lifestyle they loathe. So much for peace, love, and understanding, eh?
For years, Wal-Mart has been renowned for it’s strict regimen of self-censorship. In it’s effort to present itself as a family-friendly place to shop, the chain has cleansed it’s inventory of anything even remotely controversial or titillating. At times, it’s gone to almost ridiculous lengths to do the “family friendly” thing.
I find it interesting that the Religious Right is choosing to channel their irrantional, unfocused rage against Wal-Mart, which has always hewed religiously (pun intended) to the Christian Right’s line. If Wal-Mart is pushing the gay agenda, then I’m Phyllis Schlafly. Jeebus, shouldn’t these maroons be in church, trying to figure out how to live a Christ-like life? Or is it really all about just throwing their weight around and bending people and corporations to their will?
As if I really need to answer that question.
