Starbucks CEO: If You Support Traditional Marriage, We Don’t Want Your Business
At the Starbucks annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday, CEO Howard Schultz sent a clear message to anyone who supports traditional marriage over gay marriage: we don’t want your business. After saying Starbucks wants to “embrace diversity of all kinds,” he told a shareholder who supports traditional marriage that he should sell his shares and invest in some other company.
According to a report by Forbes, Schultz seemed a bit intolerant of any Starbucks shareholders who opposed gay marriage for moral or religious reasons. During the meeting, shareholder Tom Strobhar (who founded the Corporate Morality Action Center) pointed out that after the company voiced its support for a referendum backing gay marriage in Washington state, a boycott by traditional marriage supporters caused a drop in sales revenue. Schultz told him “You can sell your shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company” if he did not agree with the company’s pro-gay marriage stand.
Despite strong opposition from the religious and political right, support for gay marriage in America has risen in recent years. The rise of support for gay marriage has also seen a rise of intolerance for those who oppose it. Many who joined the boycott of Starbucks last year were dismissed as bigots, even though the boycott did cause revenue to drop. A website, DumpStarbucks.com, has earned tens of thousands of supporters who refuse to buy from the coffee chain in response. Examiner.com
I love coffee; I drink coffee daily, and nearly all day. Coffee is the nectar of life. A good cup of coffee of can make a BAD day a lot more bearable. I am drinking coffee as I type this story and will be drinking MORE coffee after I am done with this cup.
My *cup* holds 1/3 of a pot of coffee so, I only drink 3 cups of coffee a day! Yes, it’s all about perspective! 
I detest Starbucks coffee. I make NO apologies for that statement; I find their coffee to be bitter, almost acidic, and in MY opinion, it tastes like it was burned when it was in the roaster, so, dumping Starbucks in not an issue for me, it’s dumped.
Yes, I have had Starbucks coffee, twice, and that was because the folks I was with wanted to have Starbucks. The 2 additional times I visited Starbucks I drank hot green tea.
Now, I won’t even do that.
The CEO of Starbucks is entitled to his opinion and can run his business in any way he pleases, but I am entitled to MY opinions and to spending MY money when and where I choose. That’s the great thing about living in a FREE country, we don’t have to acquiesce to ANYONE if it goes against our beliefs and they can’t force us to buy their product.
It’s a lot like the issue we are facing here in Rowlett where atheists are trying to force their beliefs off on our City Council by demanding that the Council stop holding an invocation.
If I don’t want to drink Starbucks coffee, I won’t drink Starbucks coffee. If the atheists don’t want to participate in an invocation, no one is going to force them to do so.
Pretty simple isn’t it?
I don’t care what kind of gun you favor, I don’t care what kind of car you drive, where you buy your groceries or what brand of beer you drink.
I don’t care who sleeps with who, what they do in their bedrooms or the privacy of their homes, and I don’t care who prays or doesn’t, but when people try to tell me that I have to accept their view of everything, and put MY beliefs aside, especially my views on HOMOSEXUAL marriage or atheism, well, that is where I draw the proverbial line.
My tolerance does have its limitations.
Well, I do care about who sleeps with who when it comes to my wife and I bet most everyone feels that way, too. You make very good sense in this blog and I thank you & others who have brought the subject of Starbucks up. I will pass this on to my Starbucks loving relatives and friends and I hope to do my share in reducing profits for this moronically led company.
I’m done with them! I will not be forced by anyone to accept their views on anything. Yeah, I take a stand, a very firm stand, in my own beliefs, but I don’t try to force my views on anyone. If Howard Schultz can take a stand, so can I! Just how are they “embracing diversity of all kinds” by telling those that don’t believe the way they do to sell out?
Starbucks has good tasting products; not just coffee. But a good product without a moral compass=bad business.
The irony is only 1.4% of the total US population defined themselves as something other than heterosexual (2010 US Census).
Now I know a poll was just released today (just a few days prior to the Supreme Court addressing gay marriage), and states that 53% of the people polled support gay marriage. I wonder why I’m never polled. But I digress.
According to the article you sent yesterday, the ‘Dump Starbucks’ campaign significantly hurt the Washington state stores; so much so, the Mr. Schultz challenged his stockholders to sell if they didn’t like Starbucks policy. That tells me Starbucks is ‘feeling the pain of reprisal’.
I have a balance on my Starbucks gift card that I think I’ll redeem for cash. Heck, Peet’s is right across the street and makes a good cup-o-joe as well, only without the rainbows and unicorns.
I’m not sure if this is a nationwide effect or just a local phenomenon, but I was wondering why Sears has been going downhill. The local store here went from the thriving mall attraction to barely being able to keep their doors open… that is until my daughter was looking for a job and went on line to Sears. It turns out Sears is a huge gay rights supporter, as well as being ‘GREEN’, and every other liberal ideology that is forefront. So, the way I see it, the abandonment of their moral compass for the sake of ‘ adding business’ has provided them a net negative bottom line.
Look for Starbucks to eventually go the same way, because there are a lot of coffee addicts in church on Sunday mornings who habitually pay a visit after church, and also frequent their local Baristas during the week.
Starbuck’s Coffee can Kiss My A S-ong S-ong.
Too bitter, too liberal opinions.
Let the bums in “Occupy Wall Street” drink their swill.
I have to agree with OregonBuzz. I have a standard reply to anyone who tries to tell me homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality. I ask them this simple question. If homosexuality is normal, then why can homosexuals not have children with each other? I have yet to receive a reply to that question and do not expect to.
Have to give up caffeine might as well give up Starbucks too. Overpriced bs at that.
I agree with your sentiments Fred, but……after all that coffee, and going on what good coffee does to me, maybe you should get a little fresh air?
Probably a good idea, it gave me gas…