A recent American Family Association email to it's members states:
"Safeway wants you to know how proud they are to support homosexuality. In fact, they want you to support it too!"
In recent years other companies and businesses have made similar moves, often to their detriment. While it seems that America is supportive of individual freedoms and choice, they also support privacy and believes that private lifestyle choices, regardless of those choices, should remain just that, private.
"In Safeway branded stores across America, they are placing large posters encouraging customers to celebrate the gay lifestyle with them during the entire month of June. Safeway may be turning a deaf ear to the fact that the majority of their shoppers, often accompanied by their children of all ages, are indeed, heterosexual."
Perhaps Safeway believes that there is a large enough market share of Gays/Lesbians to replace any loss of those heterosexual shoppers who may be offended by this 'in your face' pandering?
In all Safeway's years of business, they have never placed posters promoting and urging support for Heterosexuality. Nor have they placed posters touting support of 1 man - 1 woman, traditional marriage. Safeway may want to consider maintaining that same degree of neutrality. It would seem only reasonable that if in all the history of their store, tending to their business of providing quality grocery items and remaining neutral on personal, private issues like sexual orientation is only good business. Most customers actually go to grocery stores to buy groceries, not to be confronted with political/social agendas from special interest groups with whom the customer may or may not agree.
"Safeway is apparently intent on dedicating itself to promoting homosexuality. An American Family Association supporter in New Mexico reported that her local store also included a "WE SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE" poster. When she returned a day later to take a photograph of it, it had been removed, reportedly because of the huge number of complaints by local customers.
Safeway owns and operates 1,516 stores in the U.S. Safeway operates under these names: Safeway, Dominick's, Vons, Genuardi's, Randall's, and Tom Thumb"
According to reports, many customers have voiced the opinion that they found this to be "just one more enforced, over-bearing, attempt to push an offensive agenda on what should be a private issue." The results have been that multitudes of unhappy customers have taken advantage of the American Family Association offering an easy one-click way to send an email to Safeway, asking it to stop promoting homosexuality. The e-mail suggests to Safeway that they "remain neutral in the culture war." Requesting that they let their customers "do their shopping and leave the pandering of socio-political agendas outside."
The "Call to Action" below was included in the emails sent by the American Family Association to thousands of their members, nation wide, which resulted in the flood of emails to the Safeway headquarters:
"Send an email to Safeway, asking it to stop promoting homosexuality. Tell Safeway to remain neutral in the culture war.
After sending your email, check your local store, if they have placed a poster display for the "special support" for the month of June, please call your local store manager and let him/her know your feelings about the local poster display.
Be sure to let Safeway know if they continue, you will consider grocery shopping with their competitors."
While some are deriding the American Family Association for this action, calling it "hateful", "homophobic" and many of the other usual rhetorical ranting attempts to deprive them of their right to have and freely express their opinions, it seems to actually be a non-violent expression of opinion and still a most effective way for those of differing opinion to voice that opinion.
That is the beauty of the 1st Amendment, whether you agree or disagree, it is the right of every citizen to express it, unrestricted.
"The TRUTH is not racist, or bigoted, or intolerant, or phobic, or hateful. It is simply the TRUTH." And every American has the right to speak the truth, and no matter who the truth "offends" or who is "insulted" or who gets their "feelings" hurt by it, they are NOT allowed to silence the truth. There is NO constitutional protection from anyone being so thin-skinned, so childish that it protects their "feelings".
Any American who disagrees with another needs to either stand up and speak out their disagreement or sit down and shut up.
