A Religious Right War on Pepsi Over LGBT Issues?

by Michael Jones · 2009-01-09 12:38:00 UTC
Topics:

Pepsi logoPepsi joined Campbells Soup this week as a target of anti-gay activists, for the company's financial support of two stalwart LGBT organizations, Parents Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).  Activists with the American Family Association (AFA) are leading the complaint against Pepsi, saying "Pepsi refuses to give money to any pro-family organization that opposes the homosexual agenda. Plus, every homosexual organization we know of is overwhelmingly pro-abortion."

Of the 1,000 reasons to disagree with the AFA's statement on Pepsi, one of the biggest is the lie they're spreading that Pepsi doesn't give money to pro-family orgs.  You can't get any more pro-family than PFLAG, who's goal is to promote the health and well-being of families with LGBT members.

AFA is also calling Pepsi to task for "forcing its employees to attend sexual orientation classes." I'm not sure what the hell that even means.  But kudos to PepsiCo for not backing down.  In a letter sent to the AFA, Paul Boykas, PepsiCo's Director of Public Policy, had this to say:

In 2008, the PepsiCo Foundation awarded a grant to Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays to support a national program specifically designed for workplace environments.

The initiative seeks to promote further understanding and equality in the places where people spend much of their time at work.

Among the values promoted by the PepsiCo Foundation is ensuring a work environment that is respectful and where associates are valued for their contributions.

Key word there?  Respectful. Perhaps the American Family Association should head on over to freedictionary.com and look the word up.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Same-Sex Marriage Foes Afraid to Stand by their Donations
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (7)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.