Here are two excerpts from Rob Schwarzwalder’s column on his personal boycott of Starbucks. Schwarzwalder is a senior vice president for the Family Research Council.
With Microsoft and several other major firms, Starbucks last month endorsed the effort of some of the Evergreen State’s leading politicians to enact homosexual “marriage.” Although this initiative passed in the state legislature and was signed into law by departing Gov. Christine Gregoire, it likely will be on the state ballot in November.
What is a bit maddening, given Starbucks’ strident advocacy for the redefinition of marriage, is CEO Howard Schultz’s claim that he is non-political. As he said just a few days ago, ”I have no interest in public office … I have only one interest, and that is I want the country to be on the right track.”
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Additionally, Schultz’s decrying of divisiveness rings a bit hollow when he plunges his company feet-first into the culture wars. The effort to redefine marriage to include same-sex partners is a radical social innovation, one fraught with dangerous implications for individuals, families, and culture. Claiming to be post-political and then allowing one’s chief corporate spokesperson to say that same-sex “marriage” is “is core to who we are and what we value as a company” are assertions that don’t quite add up.
So, for now, at least, I will buy my overpriced flavored coffees elsewhere. I dislike boycotts for a number of reasons, but am undertaking a personal one at present. Being for marriage, as understood in the Judeo-Christian context and Western tradition, is much more to “the core of who I am” than a Starbucks iced mocha ever will be.
CLICK HERE to read his full column.
