Tim Hortons Pulls Sponsorship from Anti-LGBT Event!

by Michael Jones · 2009-08-10 11:49:00 UTC
Topics:

Tim Hortons

Folks, this is huge.  In the past 17 hours, we've had more than 1,600 folks send letters to Tim Hortons, asking why a franchise in Rhode Island was sponsoring an anti-LGBT festival hosted by the National Organization for Marriage.  Well, guess what?  Tim Hortons has answered our emails, loud and clear.  Here's the message that just came in from their company headquarters.

Tim Hortons responds to inquiries about Rhode Island event sponsorship

Recently, Tim Hortons was approached in Rhode Island to provide free coffee and products for a local event, as we do thousands of times a year across Canada and the United States.

For 45 years, Tim Hortons and its store owners have practiced a philosophy of giving back to the communities in which we operate. As a company, our primary focus is on helping children and supporting fundraising events for non-profit organizations and registered charities.

For this reason, Tim Hortons has not sponsored those representing religious groups, political affiliates or lobby groups.

It has come to our attention that the Rhode Island event organizer and purpose of the event fall outside of our sponsorship guidelines. As such, Tim Hortons can not provide support at the event.

Tim Hortons and its store owners have always welcomed all families and communities to its restaurants and will continue to do so. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience this may have caused.

Now that's the power of social media and social action!  Please consider thanking the company in the comments section of this post.  This is great news, folks, and thanks again for taking action.

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:
There Sure are a Lot of Religious LGBT People...
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (105)

    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.