Posted on 11/09/2006 11:55:09 AM PST by NYer
Wal-Mart Contributes 5% Of Online Sales To Homosexual Group
Sign the pledge not to shop at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club on the Friday and Saturday following Thankgiving
Help recruit 1,000,000 to agree to not shop at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club (owned by Wal-Mart) on the Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving. Here's why:
In a show of support to help homosexuals legalize same-sex marriage, Wal-Mart has agreed to automatically donate 5% of online sales directly to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender People. The cash donation will come from ALL online purchases made at Wal-Mart through the homosexual group's Web site. This move follows Wal-Mart's joining the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and agreeing to give generous financial help to that group.
Every purchase made online for books, music, videos, clothing and accessories, children's clothing and toys, and electronics at the site will automatically send 5% of the sales to the homosexual group.
With this agreement, Wal-Mart made clear their support for the homosexual movement was a total commitment to the cause.
Many observers feel it would have been a wise business decision for Wal-Mart to remain neutral in the cultural battle over homosexual marriage. But this was an ideological decision by Wal-Mart, not a business decision. Wal-Mart decided to give the promotion of homosexual marriage their full support.
Take Action
1. Sign the petition to Wal-Mart letting them know you will be one of the 1,000,000 who will not shop at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club on the Friday or Saturday following Thanksgiving. Click here.
2. VERY IMPORTANT! Millions of Americans are not aware of Wal-Mart's support for homosexual marriage. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY.
3. Print out and distribute the Wal-Mart Pass Along Sheet by clicking here.
For past Wal-Mart Action Alerts, plus answers to your questions (where to shop?), Click Here.
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It is difficult, isn't it? I belong to AFA, German Shepherd Club, Antique Automobile, American Society of Mechanical Engineers.....plus I deliberately order Military History, etc. I must have 10 magazines coming in my house every month. I quit the other political things long ago because it's all just too much; as it is, I rarely read any of these things anymore.
To equate homosexuality with terrorism is ludicrous!
It is an affiliate program that is run through a Network..why not attack the Network that sets the rules about what organizations/websites/companies can participate? Thousands upon thousands of companies participate in these type programs and thy have been around for years.....why is AFA just finding out about it?
I was participating in these type things 7 years ago, and AFA has far more resources than my company did back then, yet we knew about them and took advantage of them.
Here's one but there's another one, about Christmas.
"these people are liars, as you read farther down, you will see the 5% comes only from sales at the homosexual web site it self."
And the "lie" is where?
Something tells me, that you too, might be the kind of person that would headline, then write the article the same way as those people did.
Asking why the AFA is just finding out about it, at least to me, seems like a non issue. As do all organizations, they only have so many resources available to them.
As I see it, the AFA is an organization with limited resources and they have provided information that Walmart is providing funds to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender organization.
This is an organization that supports lifestyles social conservatives and Christians should oppose at every level.
Oh stop it. It's not equating. Stop evading the issue.
As I said, I use an extreme TO DRIVE HOME THE POINT.
If you don't support homos - in fact, you think they need to be put back in the closet (i.e., not rubbing sexuality of any kind in the faces of people and children in particular in public) - then you would be against Wal-Mart or anyone in *any way* supporting those who promote that behavior.
It's all the same principle.
Maybe they will. But AFA is into big services that every-day people use.
So if they attacked the "network" (sorry, I know nothing about such things, as I don't use them in my daily life), would it be OK for them to attack Wal-Mart then?
You are taking my comments out of context. I have far less resources than AFa has and I knew about these affiliate programs 7 years ago. It also took me about 7 seconds to discover the name of the Affiliate program network, as well as the other companies with affiliate programs this gay group has signed up with.
I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I can find all this out, yet an organization such as AFA with the financial resources to put out such press releases does not have the resources to find out what I did in less than 10 minutes????
I'm actually finding all of this amusing now. The more defensive folks are getting about the limited resources of the AFA the more I'm comparing them to the charlatans of the anti-smoker crusade.
BTW, the affiliate network is Link Share, and from my reading of its enrollment guidelines, AFA would not qualify as it fails to meet certain guidlines for suitability, particularly in the categories of disrimination and disparaging of other participants. There may even be other disqualifiers, but I caught those on a quick perusal.
As I have stated on these threads, AFA would do more to promote family values by encouraging those who support them to be less materialistic and more family oriented.
Post 44 is irrelevant to my point. Post 44 does nothing to dispute the fact that the AFA article at the top of this thread is either intentionally misleading or unintentionally ridiculous.
Like many online retailers, Wal-Mart has an affiliates program that lets other Web sites sign up with little or no scrutiny. I don't have any particular problem with that. Perhaps I should. But, I wouldn't be surprised if legally, they can't pick and choose who their affiliates are, any more than they can pick and choose who their customers are.
Regardless, thanks to this incident, AFA has lost some credibility with me. From now on, whenever I see any sort of 'warning' from AFA, I'll either go over it with a fine-toothed comb, or I'll ignore the AFA altogether and expect a more credible organization will sound the alarm if the issue is actually worthy of my attention.
That was certainly not my intent. Here is what you said:
It is an affiliate program that is run through a Network..why not attack the Network that sets the rules about what organizations/websites/companies can participate? Thousands upon thousands of companies participate in these type programs and thy have been around for years.....why is AFA just finding out about it?When I quoted the last 8 words preceeded by ellipsis, which by definition are a continuation of thought, it seemed to be an accurate representation of what you said. How did I mispresent you?
I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I can find all this out, yet an organization such as AFA with the financial resources to put out such press releases does not have the resources to find out what I did in less than 10 minutes????
You are assuming the AFA doesn't know about all this. Of course, I'm assuming you haven't talked to the AFA to get their official statement on the matter.
I'm actually finding all of this amusing now. The more defensive folks are getting about the limited resources of the AFA the more I'm comparing them to the charlatans of the anti-smoker crusade.
Now that's a very interesting statement. You are concentrating on the insignificant, the non-issue in all this.
BTW, the affiliate network is Link Share, and from my reading of its enrollment guidelines, AFA would not qualify as it fails to meet certain guidlines for suitability, particularly in the categories of disrimination and disparaging of other participants. There may even be other disqualifiers, but I caught those on a quick perusal.
The AFA isn't in the politically correct business. They're in the business of alerting social conservatives and Christains about companies such as Walmart that promote organizations similar to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender. An organization that supports lifestyles social conservatives and Christians should oppose at every level.
As I have stated on these threads, AFA would do more to promote family values by encouraging those who support them to be less materialistic and more family oriented.
Yes, you've made that statement more than once but in pointing that out, yet again, you are yet again demonstrating you've never checked out the AFA website. The AFA offers support in the following areas:
Here are some more cites supported by the AFA:
One Million Dads
One Million Moms
And there are more. The AFA is pro-family in many ways, with their alert of the actions by Walmart yet another method of being more family oriented.
They can't choose their customers? If someone's a pain, disruptive, criminal - they can refuse service (in this PC day and age, it may be troublesome, but they can do it) and kick them out.
Don't tell me Wal-Mart may not take down the "affiliation". I'm sure they could be unaware of these anonymous set-ups. Once they find out, they may be able to cancel it.
If they may not, it's because of PC legalistic nonsense. But in the real world of nature, it would be their perfect right. Just like it's the right of us to not shop at Wal-Mart because of their association or for any other reason.
You've said that before as well as others have, but I still don't see it. The following text is directly from the AFA article:
In a show of support to help homosexuals legalize same-sex marriage, Wal-Mart has agreed to automatically donate 5% of online sales directly to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender People. The cash donation will come from ALL online purchases made at Wal-Mart through the homosexual group's Web site. This move follows Wal-Mart's joining the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and agreeing to give generous financial help to that group.According to the facts as I've read them, the above is accurate. In what way is the article either intentionally misleading or unintentionally ridiculous.
Thousands upon thousands of companies and organizations use these type network affiliate programs and have for years, if that is not big service that every-day people use, I don't know what is.
So if they attacked the "network" (sorry, I know nothing about such things, as I don't use them in my daily life), would it be OK for them to attack Wal-Mart then?
I think the attack on WalMart or one on the Network is just plain silly. However, I do find it hypocritical that they are only naming WalMart when the location for the link to WalMart provides links to dozens of other companies offering the same, often better, incentive to the organization, such as Avon, Disney, Amazon.com, Netflix, AT&T, Sharper Image, HallMark, FTD Florists. .
AFA would do far more for family values by suggesting a scale back of materialistic mentalities for Christmas instead of an idiotic 2 day boycott of one retailer. That is of course if they are truly seeking to bolster family values as opposed to continued commercialization of the Birth of Christ.
I don't need organizations such as AFA to tell me what my family values should be on Thanksgiving weekend (or any other time for that matter). In fact our family plans for Thanksgiving weekend promote family and traditional values far more than AFA's silly boycott against WalMart. We do no shopping that weekend, and will in fact be out in the woods gathering pine boughs, pine cones, and holly to make our own decorations.
I hope AFA and those in agreement enjoy their WalMart-free days, I'll think about them and even pray for them to get over their materialistic lives, while I enjoy much more fruitful time with my family and friends and God's great earth.
One final note.....AFA's press release is actually counter productive to their alleged goals - they are giving far more free publicity to these organizations than they would have ever received with out the nanny noses of AFA poking around. Great job.
An article by Stan Guthrie in Christianity Today recently juxtaposed the positions of the culture war nicely. You can either concern yourselves with individuals or concern yourself with the broader culture.
Or both.
The latter is the only real option for the Christian. Some, weary of the fecklessness of political solutions, are converting to an "act locally" style of compassionate outreach in their neighborhoods. Still others have launched an all-out attempt to win back the culture, forgetting about personal involvement at a practical, local level. Both of these approaches, of course, are deficient for believers seeking to be "salt and the light" as Jesus commanded.
Guthrie notes recent opinions shared in CT: Frederica Mathewes-Green says,
"God has not called us to change the weather. Our primary task as believers, and our best hope for lasting success, is to care for individuals caught up in the pounding storm."
Others, like Philip Yancey, fret about
"...how tempting it can be -- and how distracting from our primary mission -- to devote so many efforts to rehabilitating society at large, especially when these efforts demonize the opposition. (After all, neither Jesus nor Paul showed much concern about cleaning up the degenerate Roman Empire.)"
Thankfully, Guthrie keeps quoting. And he uses former CT editor Carl Henry to provide perspective: "... in his classic book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism [Henry said that] 'The battle against evil in all its forms must be pressed unsparingly,' Henry said. '[W]e must pursue the enemy in politics, in economics, in science, in ethics -- everywhere, in every field, we must pursue relentlessly.'"
Everywhere, in every field. That is the "where" of the calling of Christ on our lives. C.S. Lewis also added the "when" factor: "There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan."
We dare not give up to the influence of hell the definition of the family, or abortion arguments; the intelligent design conflict, the battles of political and religious freedom around the world, or the appropriate response to the poor, sick, aged. We also dare not give up on evangelistic and compassionate ministry to the very people we have opportunity to touch on a daily basis. Both emphases are essential for the believer.
John Stott once said that there are only two possible positions Christians could embrace towards the world: Escape and Engagement. "'Escape' means turning our backs on the world in rejection, washing our hands of it.. ... and steeling our hearts against its agonized cries for help. In contrast, 'engagement' means turning our faces towards the world in compassion, getting our hands dirty, sore and worn in its service, and feeling deep within us the stirring of the love of which cannot be contained."
This "engagement" takes many forms, of course. The dirt underneath our fingernails must be the grime of politics as well as the muck of the inner city. This writer has done enough reading of both Mathewes-Green and Yancey to know that they believe in engagement. The argument is, apparently, at what level -- cultural or individual, larger or smaller, the perplexing issues or the simple ones, political or personal.
The answer seems obvious in any fair appraisal of Scripture: both ends of these continuums, and everything in between.
What is the connection with "materialism" and AFA? I just don't get your point.
How else are people going to affect the "broader culture" except by withholding money? Should they attack with M-16s and bayonets instead? Or - God forbid - LEGISLATION?
AFA largely is against legislation. They work to change businesses to protect society by boycotting; they've never suggested even "pass a law" to get their way.
So frankly, I don't know what the complaint is about org's that try to change things in passive ways, neither by violence nor by communistic gov-force.
And believe me, these boycotts have worked. Southern Baptist Convention has also joined in boycotts and it's been very effective, at least as far as revenues for the companies in question.
I understood your elipses, others may not have, and thus just those 8 words did not represent the enirety fo my comment/question.
You are assuming the AFA doesn't know about all this. Of course, I'm assuming you haven't talked to the AFA to get their official statement on the matter.
I assume nothing, as you should not either. As I stated last night, AFA has not yet responded to my query as to why it is only WalMart they are attacking when there are dozens of other companies providing the exact same service, many with much higher financial incentives.
Now that's a very interesting statement. You are concentrating on the insignificant, the non-issue in all this.
Not at all. I find inaccurate and misleading press releases to be very significant and a major issue in all of this. By using misleading tactics credibility is called into question. The credibility of the anti-smoker crusade is being called into question, by members of the crusade itself, for just such similar misleading tactics.
The AFA isn't in the politically correct business. They're in the business of alerting social conservatives and Christains about companies such as Walmart that promote organizations similar to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender.
And by using misleading means they defeat their own purpose. I had never heard of this group until I saw this hit piece on WalMart. The AFA is doing far more to promote this organization than WalMart has ever done. You and the AFA can see all of the bogeymen you wish to see coming from any source you wish to believe, but claiming the high moral road while using deceptive means is not exactly all that high up on the moral high ground, is it now?
Yes, you've made that statement more than once but in pointing that out, yet again, you are yet again demonstrating you've never checked out the AFA website.
Again you have made a wrong assumption of me and what I have or have not done. I am quite familiar with ehat AFA does.....I agree with much of it, however I do not agree with their misleading and deceptive tactics and thus feel obligated to call into question all of what they do.
Please click each link and read for what the AFA stands. They already support the issues with which you are concerned.
Please read my previous comment.
I choose engagement.
How is utilizing deceptive/misleading tactics being family oriented?
Some gay orgainzation utilizing an affiliate program available to nearly any business or organization means nothing in the scope of things. It has no bearing on your family or mine because neither of us will be going to that website, nor would I have even known about it without this press release.
Call me naive or whathaveyou, but I would expect that an orgainzation supposedly geared to being family oriented and promoting family values would not engage in the same PR tactics utilized by others with less valuable goals.
This is not the first time that AFA has utilized misleading or fallacious tactics in press releases, and I doubt it will be the last. If they wish to take the moral high ground, they better be darned sure they are sitting on it before faulting others.
The more one is willing to agree with the use of misleading tactics in an ends justifies the means position, the less crdibility one has. The AFA, for all the good they may have done or try to continue to do, has lost a heck of a lot of credibility because of their use of such tactics.
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