Fed-up Wal-Mart worker quits over pro-'gay' agenda

Sam Walton's original stores wouldn't even sell recorded music if it contained profanity and Janet Baird was happy working hard to make the company money, setting up and managing wedding fairs and other promotions, and won awards for her efforts.

But no more. The Ohio woman, after hearing the shocking confirmation directly from the mega-corporation's international headquarters that the company is, in fact, contributing to the financial and moral agenda of the nation's "gay" chamber of commerce, she quit. And she's not a bit worried.

"I got God backing me. That's where I stand on it," she told WND in an interview.

Baird had worked for the corporation, in various branches including Sam's Club and Wal-Mart, since 1992. It was a recent tip she received from her brother that was the beginning of the end, because he told her "my company had joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce."

It was during an interview with WND in August that Wal-Mart spokesman Bob McAdam said, "It is correct that we have a dialogue with the (gay chamber). This is just what businesses do."

"Sam Walton was such a moral man, he wouldn't even allow music to be sold in his stores if it had bad language," Baird said. "When it comes to moral values, first of all they started selling smutty magazines, then they brought in nasty music and videos, even ones others refused to sell, like 'Brokeback Mountain.'"

Now this comes along. "I sent an e-mail (to the company) asking, 'What have you done to Sam Walton's store?" Baird said.

McAdam had told WND the move was just another business outreach, much as the company's affiliations with other chambers of commerce, such as the Hispanic organization.

But to Baird, it wasn't the same. She called the corporate office for its response. "The lady said, 'Yes.' When I asked if the money I spent shopping at Wal-Mart would go to support same-sex marriage, she simply responded, 'Sales are sales.'"

"I let her know how long I had worked at Wal-Mart and told her that I would no longer work for this company and never spend another dime there. She replied, 'I hope you don't mean that.' I did mean it. The next day I went to the store and quit. The manager that signed my exit papers had no idea about what had been going on in the leadership of Wal-Mart."

Now she's staging protests in front of that store, and others nearby, to let people know of the company's affiliations and commitments.

She said a large part of her years-long commitment to the company was because of the original core values the company exemplified.

"I began working with Sam's Club in 1992. Mr. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Stores, had recently passed away. The more I learned about this man the more I wanted to do what I could to make this an ever better place to work.

"I worked in marketing and put together the first wedding expo. This was a fund-raiser that allowed vendors to set up for a weekend and all the proceeds went to the Children's Miracle Network. It was a huge success," she said.

"This became a yearly event. I was so proud to work for this company. I was privileged to be the event coordinator for a number of Wal-Mart sponsored events and raised a lot of money in the community," she said.

One beneficiary was a young man named Luke Clemons. He was 18 and needed a liver transplant. "We managed to raise enough money for (the) transplant and start a Luke Clemons Foundation," Baird said. He survived four more years.

"This was not a job to me, it was a ministry given to me by God Himself to help His people in need and get paid for it at the same time," Baird said.

But things changed. "Today Wal-Mart is not the same company Mr. Sam started. I think he would rather see it go under than to see what it has become. Mr. Sam loved God – the store he began does not!" she said.

Her boycott is getting its start in front of the store where she used to work, on the Lexington Springmill Road in Ontario, and then at the nearby store in Mansfield, Ohio, and then will continue to other stores.

"As Christians we have to take a stand and get the word out because most people are not aware of what is happening," she said.

Her big boycott launch will be the Friday after Thanksgiving, November 24, she said, because that traditionally is the biggest single shopping day of the year.

"We will be joining all of you on the day after Thanksgiving … to bring the Gospel of Christ to the very gates of hell," she said.

She's replaced only part of the income she gave up by leaving Wal-Mart, by accepting a position in a physician's office.

When Wal-Mart initially confirmed the agreement to support the "gay" chamber, Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., immediately launched a citizens protest of the move.

It also was at that point that an advertising industry site, AdAge, confirmed Wal-Mart not only had joined the NGLCC but also has hired a "gay-marketing" shop and started discussions about extending domestic-partner benefits to employees.

In the AdAge report, Justin Nelson of the NGLCC described the company as "pragmatic."

"They have been viewed with some degree of skepticism by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, and it's important for them in terms of gaining market share to change that," he told AdAge.

Perkins told supporters that the "heat" from the "radical left" apparently influenced the company's corporate decisions, and he wants constituents to let Wal-Mart know of their displeasure.

"While the NGLCC professes to promote the 'interests of the LGBT business community,' this is not all they have done," Perkins said. "Recently, they described efforts to defend traditional marriage as an attempt to 'write discrimination into the Constitution …' The NGLCC also advocated attaching a pro-homosexual 'hate crimes' amendment to legislation intended to protect children from violent sex offenders."

"It is unfortunate," Perkins said, "that Wal-Mart has joined forces with an organization whose mission opposes many of the values shared by rural and small-town America. It is precisely the interests of average Americans that Wal-Mart has prided itself in promoting.

"Now, by surrendering to the radical homosexual lobby, Wal-Mart has entered the political arena with no economic benefit to their company or their customers," he said.

Silence on this issue retains the good will of the population that views homosexual behavior as undesirable without antagonizing homosexual practitioners and their supporters. Therefore, it would seem the smart business move for stockholders, customers, employees and everyone else would be “no comment.”

… the gay community isn't that small, only 2% of the population self-identifies as gay on surveys but the real numbers are somewhat bigger. (4% wouldn't surprise me.)

Let’s see… your own figures mean that 96 percent, or more, of the population is not homosexual. Other sources claim that over 80 percent of the population is Christian. Christianity holds that homosexual behavior is sinful and should be avoided. Therefore, even if only half of those who are identified as Christian sincerely hold those beliefs, the proportion of the population that takes offense at homosexual agenda support from a major corporation is many times greater than the proportion you cite as homosexual. Therefore, the logic of my statement continues to stand unrefuted.

More importantly, there are a lot of people who find they have a gay relative or an old friend who turns out to be gay, or gay colleagues. They realize that gays are ordinary people and are no threat to them. So there are plenty of straight people who are sympathetic to gay people now.

Unfortunately, I have a relative who claims to be a lesbian. Such does not make me sympathetic to her in any sense other than sincere regret for her choice and earnest hope for her reform. There is no reason to assume that the majority of others who have a relative in similar circumstances view the situation any differently.

But the other reason these companies cater to the gay lobby is that if you want to recruit technical and creative talent for your company, you'd best not be allergic to gay people.

Again, let’s examine the question raised by the logical implication of your statement. Are you claiming that the distribution of “technical and creative talent” is some how restricted to the homosexual segment of the population? Perhaps, you are implying that there is not an adequate distribution of “technical and creative talent” among those individuals who are not homosexual?

Assuming that “technical and creative talent” follows a Gaussian distribution in the population (as do nearly all other traits), then there is no reason to assume that even if a company actively refused to hire homosexual practitioners, they would exclude more than 2 percent of the potentially available pool of “technical and creative talent.” Stating that position in the reverse, these companies would still have access to 98 percent of the available pool of qualified resources.

And the ones who are straight that you've already hired might be very sympathetic to gay people, and would bolt if you transmitted the message that gay people are not welcome at your firm or might be poorly treated at your firm.

Conversely, those who are straight that you have already hired might be very offended and might bolt if you transmit the message that you support the homosexual agenda… to wit, the individual cited in the article posted at the beginning of this thread.

I'm a math professor, so I know a lot of these kind of people. The academic culture at even small red state schools is now very pro-gay, if you are uncomfortable around gay people you're going to be an unhappy camper.

I served as adjunct faculty for both graduate and undergraduate courses in engineering, forensics and simulation (a field, no doubt, with which you are familiar) at two different universities for a number of years. Amazingly enough, I do not ever recall asking any of my fellow instructors, my students, or the organization administrators about their sexual preference, nor do I recall them volunteering such information. It would seem that silence concerning such personal items was not only appropriate etiquette, but was also conducive to good working relationships. Why would the situation be any different for good business relationships?

It doesn't bother me. My point being that the technical and creative people come from the university environments, and share the same culture.

I don’t think you realize how insulting and condescending your comments appear. No technical and creative people come from other sources than university environments? All of those who come from university environment have the same opinion concerning homosexual practitioners? Because you do not have a problem with this issue, no one should?

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