Now they've planted their Target symbol in just the right place to follow JC Penny's down the garden path.
Posted on 08/05/2014 5:11:42 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Target finally threw its corporate weight behind marriage equality Tuesday, with the Minneapolis-based retailer joining an amicus brief in a court case.
"We believe that everyone -- all of our team members and guests -- deserve to be treated equally," Target executive vice president Jodee Kozlak said in a statement posted on the corporate blog.
Yet in recent years, Target's official position on same-sex marriage had been a case study of mixed signals, causing the discount chain a great deal of grief.
During the heated 2012 marriage amendment fight in Minnesota, Target remained firmly on the sidelines -- and remained there in 2013 when the Legislature voted to let same-sex couples wed.
Yet for decades, Target had a reputation as a welcoming and supportive workplace for gay and lesbian employees. And it has been a large financial contributor to gay community groups in Minnesota and beyond.
While Minnesota's gay-marriage debate has come and gone, Kozlak's statement noted that it continues in other places. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit -- covering Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana -- is considering a case that finally impelled Target to take a public stand.
In part, Target offered a business case.
"Current laws -- in places like Wisconsin and Indiana that are addressed in this brief -- make it difficult to attract and retain talent," wrote Kozlak, who heads human resources for Target. "These disparate laws also create confusing and complicated benefits challenges across multiple states."
But Kozlak also hinted at a degree of corporate soul-searching as gay marriage spreads across the land. She did not mention another change: the firing of Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel, who in 2010 was criticized after Target made a $150,000 campaign contribution on behalf of an anti-gay-rights Republican, Tom Emmer.
That contribution led to consumer protests against Target, and an apology from Steinhafel. But stung by the reaction, Target instead embraced a series of wink-and-nod signals on the gay-marriage question.
In 2011, it signed an exclusive partnership with Lady Gaga to promote her gay-anthem album, "Born This Way." The singer told reporters that Target had promised to be more gay-friendly, a characterization Target disputed, and their deal quickly dissolved.
In 2012, Target ran an ad featuring two grooms. "Build a Target Wedding Gift Registry as unique as the two of you," the ad said. But Target stressed it was still neutral on the gay marriage issue.
In 2012 Target sold rainbow "Love is Love" T-shirts in its stores with proceeds going to a gay-families group, which angered religious groups supporting the marriage amendment, which would have banned same-sex marriage in the state constitution. But the amendment failed.
This week, Target decided to more direct.
"As our leadership team discussed signing on, we took time to consider the bigger questions at hand," Kozlak posted Tuesday. "This brief is important, as the issues it addresses have significant impact on business. But it is more than that and we agreed now is the right time to more directly share our views."
I stopped shopping there when they closed out their guns in sporting goods. That was a long time ago.
Bought a Marlin 10ga Super Goose. Bolt action. $100. You never wanted to have to pull the trigger twice!
Maybe if they worried as much about protecting their customer’s credit card numbers as they do about something that HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OPERATING A BUSINESS, perhaps they would not have had the multi-million dollar screw up last year.
There is no "gay-marriage ban." Never has been and never will be. The majority of folks supported constitutional amendments affirming traditional marriage, that's it.
Nothing is stopping homosexuals from being together, living together, signing legal contracts, etc. Such a phony, false narrative that any Republican should have easily repudiated it and gotten stronger in the process.
Their finacials weren’t good news for them today.
I don't understand the homosexual activism from corporations. Unfortunately, you cannot oppose this view in a company.
From the boardroom, to the beltway, from the northeast and west coast its clear that traditional Americans are no longer welcome.
They will marginalize your vote and eliminate your job with "immigration reform", dissolve the family with "marriage equality", confiscate your property when you pay your "fair share", then kill you off with " affordable heath care".
Good Idea Target, pandering to 3% or less of the population simply because they’re a bunch of whiny little bitches. Good luck with that.
CC
all it takes is when they get a POPE without morals
Now they've planted their Target symbol in just the right place to follow JC Penny's down the garden path.
The trannies I’ve seen working the cash registers at the Ann Arbor Target are enough to scare you away. I got in line for the cashier one afternoon about a week before Halloween, looked up and holy crap, thought he/she was in some kind of costume. Good thing I kept my big mouth shut.
Bye Bye Target - my money is spendable elsewhere.
The FReepathon has been stuck on 39% for a day or so now.
If you haven’t pulled the trigger yet, see if you can make it happen.
Without this place, we will be in serious trouble. More so than we already are.
Any amount helps!
Thanks in advance.
fut.
.....In the end, there will be a big price to pay in the form of “angry blowback”.
Very true but I'm damn tired of Wally World and I did find a few more things not made in China at Target than at Walmart. Sigh, and another bites the . . . um, dust.
Target made its choice to support perved marriage and we will choose not to shop there.
Dopes....why alienate a large part of their customer base?
Shut up and sell....bye, bye Target.
Move over JC Penney. Here comes the new kid in town.
That really is Target's base. Middle and upper-class liberals. At Target, you don't see none of the inner-city trash there like you do at Walmart.
Target is not doing well in Canada.
I LOVED that store when I lived in Denver, and when it first moved here, I was very happy to go out of my way to shop there (although the shelves were half-stocked; they had supply problems up here).
They finally got into the “Publi-Sac” in our neighborhood this week; that’s the plastic bag full of flyers and coupons that goes into our local mailboxes. I saved their flyer for this week (A “back to school” special), happy to support them, to do my part to help them here in Canada.
I realize this decision by them won’t matter to most Canadians, but this half-...thought-out decision, well, forget it. I’m not going out of my way to shop there ever again.
Why would a business chime in on something like this? Stupid.
“Why would someone shop at a morally bankrupt store?”
___________________________________________
I guess because they’re not paying attention, and/or they don’t care.
Stay safe, FRiend. :)
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