Home Depot, a major American DIY store which supports Gay Pride events, has turned a deaf ear to a petition from the American Family Association calling on the company to stop supporting homosexual organizations and events. The petition was presented at a shareholders' meeting.
Over 470,000 Americans from all 50 states signed the petition which asked the company to remain neutral in the 'culture war', but the company's response was that it respected 'diversity'.
American Family Association (AFA) began a boycott of the Home Depot in 2010, and it will now continue. The petition was presented by AFA's vice-president Buddy Smith, who told the annual meeting of shareholders:
‘My name is Buddy Smith and I’m here today to inquire of the leadership of Home Depot why you have publicly entered the cultural debate over marriage and the family by sponsoring Gay Pride parades and events around the nation and making direct contributions to activist organizations. These actions by the Home Depot are firmly seen by many to cast a corporate vote in favour of gay marriage.
‘The Home Depot’s founders’ vision was clearly focused on selling hammers and not taking sides in the extremely divisive cultural debate. I’m an official with the American Family Association and we had some early communications with (Home Depot) requesting of the leadership that you would take a neutral position on the marriage debate by dropping sponsorships of the Gay Pride events and unfortunately we were told that this would not happen.
‘So in hopes of asking you and encouraging you to reconsider that position we have brought with us today 474,161 signatures of people representing all 50 states who are boycotting Home Depot until you become neutral in this arena. I spoke with (an executive) earlier and he has graciously agreed to receive these petitions and we’re grateful for that. ‘Your current policy has already offended hundreds of thousands of customers by taking sides in the debate so we would ask again would you please consider stopping these sponsorships and the contributions to the activist organizations. If any documentation is needed, all of that can be found at ‘Boycott the Home Depot.com’ Thank you very much for your consideration.’
A company spokesman responded: ‘I hope all of our shareholders understand we’re a company that respects the diversity of our associates and our customers and the communities where we do business ….One of our core values is respect for all people.’
You can sign the boycott and link with AFA by clicking on to
http://www.afa.net/
You can read a report of the shareholders' meeting on this OneNewsNow link
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1360542
