Posted on 08/23/2006 5:50:17 AM PDT by sweetliberty
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is joining with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to help advance diversity within the Bentonville-based retailer’s operations, the company confirmed Tuesday.
Dee Breazeale, a Wal-Mart vice president, will serve on the chamber’s corporate advisory council, which works to educate corporate America on the benefits of workplace diversity.
“We are honored to have Wal-Mart's support of the NGLCC. Our partnership will not only provide more opportunities for the NGLCC, but the business community as a whole,” Justin Nelson, chamber co-founder and president, said in a news release. “We are pleased with this addition to our organization and to our council.”
Wal-Mart has also agreed to sponsor some of the chamber’s programs, including two of its conferences.
Wal-Mart didn’t issue a news release about its partnership with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, leaving it to the chamber to publish the news at its Web site Monday.
Wal-Mart spokesman Bob McAdam in a telephone interview with The Morning News downplayed any controversy over the issue.
“We participate in all kinds of organizations, hundreds of them, (and) this is just one. It’s not really any different than any outreach we do that represents a segment of our customers,” he said.
Reaction from one quarter was critical, however. American Family Association spokesman Randy Sharp said his organization wasn’t surprised by the news because it was the latest in a “long list” of Wal-Mart actions to “recognize and endorse a personal sexual behavior.”
“It’s disappointing. I personally chose two months ago to stop shopping at Wal-Mart ... and I think others will follow suit,” Sharp said. “Up until a year and a half ago, the AFA applauded Wal-Mart for their pro-family policies, but now it seems Wal-Mart has decided to push aside that legacy left by (founder) Sam Walton and joined those who look at the bottom line and stock prices.”
McAdam retorted that Walton’s legacy was “taking care of customers and taking care of their needs, and in the process we’ll run a profitable business.”
The American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., and headed by Donald Wildmon, criticized Wal-Mart last year when the company held a seminar on how to market to gay America and also just recently when the retailer prominently advertised that it carried the “Brokeback Mountain” DVD in its stores.
Wal-Mart added gays and lesbians to its anti-discrimination policy in 2003. Spokeswoman Linda Blakley said in December that the company’s marketing seminar grew out of an Associate Resource Groups program Wal-Mart launched in April 2005.
The Associates Resource Group features “affinity or network groups” and includes ones for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees. An American Family Association Journal article at the time criticized the program, saying Wal-Mart had “caved in” to gay activists.
Other companies with representatives on the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber Corporate Advisory Council include IBM, Wells Fargo and Kodak, according to the chamber.
Maybe gays’ll bring some real fashion to Wal-Mart’s clothing and linen. The deli will improve some, but and the beauty salon’s going totally upscale. Fabulous!
Has Target done this too?
You are right about finding it tough to shop without Wal Mart/Sams. We live in Northwest Arkansas and there isn't much else here. Most of the people here work for Wally World in some capacity. Most executives and everyone else lives here. I was personal friends with Sam and his family and they were and still are good people. Corporate PC has ovetaken them.
Finally. I real reason to hate WalMArt. I have found things stuck to my shoe with more spine than these corporate pukes.
I'm curious how Wal-Mart knows someone engages in homosexual acts? It seems a rather bizarre thing to be concerned about.
Will there be a question on application: who do you sleep with???
Look, I don't mind products made by Chinese slave labor, but I'll be damned if I'll shop at a place that cozies up to gays.
Wonder what the sales pitch is like to convince a company that hiring homosexuals is beneficial to the company.
Little boys pants will always be half off?
Actually most associates at wally world believe he's laying face down now...too embarrassed by what his company has become...I know...I work there.
"Homosexuals are people who indulge in behavior that destroys, is completely selfish and is antithetical to a strong, vibrant, growing society. These are facts. To acknowledge, or to give support to these people's choices, which are detrimental to our future, is anathema. I also will never step a foot in another Wal-Mart store."
I think this one needs to be on the list, or maybe both lists.
:-(
-I suppose this will create quite a dilemma for the business-hating lefties.-
I think the hating part is all talk from the looks of my local WalMart parking lot.
In college, I worked for a small-chain record store. They were still called a record store, even though we were about 50-50 on casettes and CDs. My mother, in her infinte wisdom, decided that, thanks to my employee discount, she could have a cheap Christmas with me getting her a ton of tapes and CDs for everyone: Mariah Carey for her niece, Englebert Humperdinck for Aunt Eunice, you get the idea.
An associate told me that, despite the employee discount here, I could get them for even less at Wal-Mart. Since my mom already gave me the cash, I saw a chance to skim a little.
Went to Wally World and had a great deal of trouble finding about half the CDs, especially the Rock and Country ones. That part of the CD display looked like a tornado hit it. (The rest of the store was not in better shape.) Finally, there was one left I could not find. Knowing that, at my current place of employment, stock was kept under the displays, I opened up a cabinet below the display (it was not locked), opened a box of CDs with the appropriate artist, took out a CD, and put the box back.
No one-- not an employee, not loss-prevention-- came up to me. The checkout clerk did not even bat an eye when 14 of the CDs had those plastic locks on them and the 15th did not.
I *saw* a total of two employees in the store, midafternoon one week before Christmas: the greeter and the cashier. Oh, yeah, the line was a mile long, they had one register open.
Oh, total savings on 15 CDs relative to the employee discount... $9.
THe chain record store for which I used to work filed for bankruptcy a year later.
Still have not gone back to Wally World.
People don't know what's been decided by Wal-Mart. Note the article states that the announcement of this decision was NOT published by Wal-Mart but the homosexual group that set this up.
That issue doesn't bother me quite as much. I went through a big "Christmas is a pagan thing" stage and still have a little of that left over.
Wal-Mart gets no credit for being PC.
You stole my line.
It's gonna be tough, but the bad feeling I had about helping China's military buildup by shopping there is now increased by walmarts commitment to destroying us at home as well.
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