Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Boycotting Starbucks: Is it hypocritical?

Some time ago, The National Organization for Marriage decided it would be a great idea to boycott Starbucks. They even set up a web site here for people to do just that.

Full disclosure: I've been avoiding Starbucks since the mid-2000s out of support for local coffee shops and because their owner decided to sell the Seattle Supersonics to an Oklahoma businessman instead of trying to sell to someone who would keep the team in Seattle. So it's not like I was their target audience.

I think its great that someone would decide to spend their money elsewhere, instead of with a company that decided that gay marriage was at the core of their company's values. We all have the freedom to do what we want with our hard-earned money.

But something about the boycott didn't sit right with me. Sure, I can't stand Starbucks either. But calling them out when there are other companies who support the same thing seems a bit misguided. Where is NOM's boycott of Apple and Microsoft?

I think if you boycott one company who publicly supports gay marriage, you need to boycott them all. And I haven't seen any web sites promoting boycotts of the computer giants from the NOM. I guess boycotting coffee is easier than boycotting computers, as you actually need the latter to function efficiently in society, while you can get by without a cup of coffee.

A boycott of convenience? I think so.

2 comments:

  1. I boycott everybody.

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  2. I go to Starbucks more than I'd like to. Honestly, I don't know of anywhere else to get coffee. I miss Wawa.

    Donation-Can.com

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