NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–After nearly a decade of lying low, Starbucks has reentered the homosexual rights movement in a few ways that have put at least one conservative watchdog group on alert.
The world’s most famous coffee shop chain has begun a program called “The Way I See It,” which is a collection of thoughts, opinions and expressions provided by notable figures that now appear on Starbucks coffee cups, according to the chain’s website.
But one particular quote — #43 — blatantly pushes the homosexual agenda. It’s by Armistead Maupin, who wrote “Tales of the City,” a bestseller-turned-PBS drama advocating the homosexual lifestyle, and it reads:
“My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too [expletive] short.”
Concerned Women for America, one of the nation’s leading conservative public policy organizations, is sounding the alarm about the cups after one of its employees received one when she purchased coffee from one of the stores.
Meghan Kleppinger, assistant to the national field director at CWA, wrote a column about Starbucks’ involvement in the homosexual movement which was posted by WorldNetDaily Aug. 10.
Kleppinger, who had been a frequent patron of Starbucks until recently vowing to stop, was put on notice about Starbucks earlier this summer when she received an e-mail from the California arm of CWA describing an annual “gay pride” parade in San Diego. The parade sounded like a typical event, she thought, until she read on.
“I read where there would be children’s gardens and basically in the midst of all of this sexual activity there would be events for children,” she said Aug. 8. “And then I read that two registered pedophiles were volunteers at this event. When I scrolled to the bottom I saw who the sponsors were, and the one that jumped out was Starbucks because that is a favorite company of mine. So it just frustrated me that a company was giving money to something like this where children would be exposed to this sort of thing.”
If Starbucks knowingly was sponsoring a parade that put children in danger, that would be “blatant irresponsibility,” Kleppinger wrote in her column. And if they were doing it unknowingly, they should have investigated before handing over the money, she said.
Kleppinger then found that the company is listed on the website of pro-abortion rights Planned Parenthood under this introduction: “The following companies all generously match employee donations to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. If your employer is on this list, then you can make your gift go as much as twice as far.”
And at “gay pride” events in Seattle, Wash., in July, about 75 Starbucks employees wore promotional T-shirts while followed by a van with the company logo in a parade, Kleppinger reported, and employees passed out samples of a new specialty coffee drink.
Robert Knight, director of the organization’s Culture & Family Institute, noted that Starbucks is not alone in pushing the homosexual agenda.
“There are active homosexual groups in most major corporations now and they do a shake down, where they say, ‘If you don’t promote our events, you’re exhibiting bigotry and hatred, and we’re going to let everybody know that and you’ll feel bad about yourself and maybe it will hurt your sales.’ I don’t think it has ever hurt a company’s sales. I think they just cave in all too easily,” Knight said Aug. 8.
“But Starbucks was promoting homosexuality about 10 years ago … and a lot of conservative groups got together and said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and I remember getting a letter back from them about 10 years ago saying, ‘Well, you know, we were doing it, but it was an oversight and we’re not doing it anymore,’” he added. “And I noticed that over the years Starbucks was not among the corporate logos at the bottom of these ads sponsoring gay pride events — until recently. They’ve started to creep back in.”
Once CWA employees were made aware of the possible harm to children at the San Diego events sponsored by Starbucks, they decided to speak up. They are not calling specifically for a boycott of Starbucks, but they are trying to alert as many people as possible to what the company is doing, Knight said.
“The American Family Association has been doing this for years with great results. Often we don’t see the results because a company will notice that it has gotten out to thousands of people and they pull back whatever thing they were doing that caused the concern in the first place,” he said.
“And then they ask the American Family Association, ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it because then we’ll have the gay pride activists on us.’ So they just back away. Many victories have been won like that and the public isn’t aware of it. … Most companies do not want bad publicity. They don’t want customers mad at them, and they’ll do almost anything to avoid a boycott or something short of a boycott like publicizing what Starbucks is doing right now.”
Knight suggested a strategy for Christians — letting Starbucks know they are not happy with the company’s promotion of the homosexual agenda.
“It’s not enough not to go to Starbucks anymore,” he said. “You really need to visit your neighborhood Starbucks and ask to see the manager and just say, ‘You know, I’ve gone here a lot and I would love to go here but I have to tell you your company’s promotion of something that is against my values prevents me from having coffee here anymore, and I’ve found alternatives … You make a great product, but you deserve to know why people aren’t buying your product anymore.’
“That strategy goes for almost anything,” Knight added. “Anytime you find out that a company has been sponsoring something that you disagree with, it’s best to tell at the dealer or shop or store level people why you’re not buying their product anymore. Believe me, this gets back to corporate headquarters real fast.”
Starbucks said it started the “The Way I See It” program “as an extension of the coffeehouse culture — a way to promote open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals.” Some notable figures whose quotes appear on the cups include actor Quincy Jones, New Age author Deepak Chopra, film critic Michael Medved, Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan and coaching legend John Wooden.
The coffee chain welcomes comments on the program or a specific quote via an online feedback form, available at www.starbucks.com, or through brochures in stores.
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