Friday, February 20, 2009

List of stores to support

I got another message from Focus on the Family! They gave me a link to Life decisions international www.fightpp.org They have a list (though it costs $ to buy the unabridged list) so I am going to post a few of the names of businesses that help planned parenthood, their mortal enemy.

Whole Foods Market, JPMorgan Chase (including Chase Bank, & Bank One), Bank of America, Lost Arrow (Patagonia), Wells Fargo, Chevron (including Caltex, Xpress Lube, & Texaco), eBay (including PayPal), Carlson Companies (including Country Inns & Suites, Park Inn, Radisson Hotels, Regent Hotels, TGI Friday's restaurants), Kenneth Cole, Nike, Midas, Marriott (including Courtyard Hotels, Fairfield Inn, Renaissance Hotels & Inns, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, etc.), Johnson & Johnson, Valero (Beacon, Ultramar, etc.), Wachovia, and Sonic (drive-in restaurants)

Support these lovely businesses for not being afraid of some right wing nutjobs.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The first list

Focus on the Family was kind enough to give me a list of businesses that support their agenda over the winter season.

It can be assumed that these businesses also support their cause for the other 3 seasons, but they promised me that they'd get back to me possibly by tomorrow to show me what retail stores they approve of in the rest of the year

Citing their sources at http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000008645.cfm

Best Buy-Overpriced electronics
Cabela's-Hunting/fishing/camping supplies
Kohl's- poorly made clothing and furniture
Lowe's- home improvement
Macy's- clothing you're grandmother bought you
Nordstrom- overpriced knockoff couture
Pier 1 Imports- pre-packaged psuedo-exotic furniture.
Toys "R" Us- cheap plastic toys from China filled with GHB.
Wal-Mart- Honestly, has anything in this store not been made by sweatshop children? We shouldn't have bought stuff from them anyways!

These are the first of many stores to be listed in the boycott.

My Challenge

I live in a very conservative part of the USA, the Southeast, the very idea of Atheism down here is like a statement of being a domestic terrorist, a pedophile, a whore, and a murderer all at once. At my office, which shall not be named, I have actually been told "jokingly" that had they known I was a liberal atheist when I was applying, I would not have gotten the job. Would they have made such jokes towards a baptist? Would a Mormon be told "if I had known you have an imaginary friend who lives up in the sky judging every move you make, I wouldn't have hired you."? NO!

We live world where war, murder, rape, abuse, theft, vandalism, and discrimination in the name of "God" are more common than reason. I find this to be sad.

I am a vegetarian, and a homosexual among other things, and I notice that when a company discriminates or states intent to discriminate against one of the groups that I am a part of, we boycott them. When companies in the fashion industry use fur in their line, vegetarians, animal rights activists, and ecologist boycott their brands in order to show that they will not reward these people for their ignorance/brutality/lack of ethics. When Kellogg removed their support from Michael Phelps after a photo of him smoking a water pipe was released, marijuana users in the US began to boycott them, showing that they believed that cannabis use was not something that should be reason for dismissal. If he could break world records in a pool in Beijing while stoned, I say he was damn good!

Businesses that identify themselves as Christian or Christian-affiliated should be treated as being as dangerous as the churches they stand beside. Most people do not see the underlying effects of these connections. They think that Christian supermarkets just withhold one's wine and beer for a few hours on Sunday, but they fail to see how far this spreads.
A Christian business can fire people for their sexual orientation, for refusing to celebrate Christmas, for any arbitrary reason that a customer, manager, or employee might deem unfitting of an employee of their God-fearing establishment.
This is where my challenge comes into play. Just like how animal rights activists do not shop at stores that sell fur, I say as Atheists, we boycott Christian businesses.

This may seem easy, there are very few grocery stores that will put a cross in the front of their store, and I doubt many of us would go to one of them anyways, but what about stores that do this more covertly? Wal-Mart stated that they would not sell birth control pills because it was "morally wrong". Harris Teeter (a powerful grocery store chain in the Southeast) will not sell alcohol at certain times and claims it is in the interest of their Christian affiliation.

I am in the process of obtaining an "approved" list from "Focus on the Family" which will become the first draft to my boycott list. More stores added as they become known.

From this day forth, I refuse to buy any product that supports the Christian agenda in any of its socially destructive efforts!

I invite all Atheists, Non-Theists, Agnostics, Scientists, and any other person who believes in free thought and intelligent inquiry to join me on my campaign for a world where the far reaching claws of the Church are clipped and left for the gullible few on Sunday mornings.