Another take on the Target boycott: Eric Reitan is a cousin of Randi Reitan, the Minnesota grandmother spearheading the boycott, about whom I blogged again yesterday. And I’ve blogged in the past about Eric Reitan, a married heterosexual man from a family that, in his phrase, “practically drips with Lutheran pastors,” who left the Lutheran church for the United Church of Christ due to the slow movement of the ELCA towards equality for its gay members prior to 2009.
Reitan situates Target’s decision to donate to anti-gay Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer within a business culture dominated by the notion that profits come before all other principles—the “secret gospel of business,” Reitan calls it. And so Target sees no inconsistency in telling gay customers that it supports them, and then donating to a man with ties to a group that calls for killing gays.
Reitan asks,
Reitan asks,
One wonders if, had Target been around in the era of segregation, they would have seen anything contradictory in declaring “unwavering support” for the black community and the value of inclusiveness while bankrolling a Jim Crow candidate. Apparently not.
I’d love to hear a Target corporate talking head tackle Reitan’s question.
P.S. The Boycott Target Facebook site continues to attract supporters exponentially: some 25,000 supporters on Sunday, over 38,000 members when I blogged yesterday, and today at 7 A.M., right at 43,000 folks. Target seems to have bitten off more than it can chew when it decided to maximize its profits on the backs of gay and lesbian human beings.
