Bullseye

American Spectator ^ | 8/25/2010 | Nicole Russell

[IbJensen]

At first glance, it appears Target, that Minnesota-based company with the cute white dog and bullseye as marketing ploys (and sales that best any department store) waffles more than the middling Minnesotan, Senator Al Franken. But a closer look proves it's really a greedy, narcissistic, free-market- loving business like any other with half the entrepreneurial spirit and twice the industrial brain.

A few weeks ago, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel surprised locals when he apologized to company leaders for making a $150,000 contribution to a conservative group, Minnesota Forward, which backs the Republican nominee for Governor, Tom Emmer. The apology was prompted by outcries of disgust and calls to boycott Target by LGBT groups, specifically the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest gay rights organization in the country; Emmer, of course, opposes gay rights. A Facebook group boycotting Target had grown to -- gasp -- 58,000 people. While local economists began to calculate how Target might recover from such a profit loss, the HRC also proposed a boycott to Best Buy, which gave $100,000 to MN Forward as well (but whose CEO didn't publicly apologize for the gift).

Boycott notwithstanding, Steinhafel buckled under the pressure and the bucket-loads of criticism -- but only momentarily. Time has proved he's not completely without a spine, or a calculating brain.

[IbJensen]

Public approval for the practices and lifestyle of homosexuals is not going to happen. Those of us who are repulsed by such practices are barely able to manifest toleration, and that is only because leftists have practically made it a crime for us to express our true feelings.