Separating Product and Politics

http://thecollegeconservative.com/2012/08/01/this-chicken-fight-wont-hatch-real-change/

http://thecollegeconservative.com/2012/08/02/chick-fil-a-appreciation-day-reveals-liberal-intolerance/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noah-michelson/chick-fil-a-first-amendment_b_1733305.html?ir=Religion&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

GLBT rights remain prominent in both politics and culture. A few weeks ago, I discussed the appropriateness of supporting political positions as a company in “You Can’t Boycott the Gay Away” and it seems that the reverse applies as well; you can’t support a company to make the gay go away. Chick-fil-a was already in the news a few years ago when it was revealed they give millions of dollars to anti gay companies like the Family Research Council. But this year, their president, Dan Cathy, brought the company into the spotlight again when he stated that his company was founded on “Biblical principles” and supported the “traditional family”. This brought a great deal of hostility towards and protests across the country at Chick-fil-A, ranging from mayors saying they won’t allow new CFA restaurants in their cities to people planning gay kiss-ins at the establishments. But Mike Huckabee, former presidential candidate in the 2008 race, supported a counter protest in the form of a “buycott” where people would eat at CFA to support their opposition to gay marriage. This doesn’t really seem to have worked, since the company is losing popularity overall in their brand recognition in the last month or so. And even if CFA manages to keep its profits at an even keel, I imagine they will lose a great deal of patrons and likely close a few locations where profits aren’t maintained, keeping their main locations in places where it maintains popularity with a conservative demographic, such as where it started in the Southeast. But is it really appropriate to always protest or boycott a group merely because they don’t agree with your politics? Can you distinguish between the policies a company supports and the product they sell you or are they too overlapped when it comes to where the money used to pay for it goes to? And should corporations really be involved in politics or should they focus on making profit in their ventures?

First off, this shouldn’t be argued to be about first amendment rights. Like the Oreo thing, it is within a company’s rights to say they support a certain political position. The limits of the first amendment are primarily to hate speech, which hasn’t been uttered as far as I’m aware by Dan Cathy. Even his ridiculous claim that we’re “inviting God’s judgment” by trying to achieve marriage equality is not illegal, since it’s a claim that has no real basis in fact like Westboro Baptist Church’s similar warnings. Terrible things happen to America as much as they happen to other nations, so God’s judgment is all over the place by that sketchy logic. CFA has every right to take a stand on this issue, but at the same time, there is such a thing as too much involvement. Companies can become too invested and literally start to campaign through their funds by donating to political organizations. This fundamentally undermines the initial purpose of a democratic government. When companies get involved, they take away the real value of the individual votes, because they’re campaigning with much more money behind them and it’s voluntary for different reasons. Asking for funds is one thing common in election season, but restaurants or the like get consistent cash flow, which makes their situation more ideal to take advantage of the lack of limits in other political contexts.  The Supreme court has made it law, from what I understand, that corporations cannot donate more than a certain amount to presidential or other such candidate based campaigns, but say nothing concerning such things as legislation in general. The Family Research Council, one of CFA’s recipients of funds, was against Congress condemning a bill in Uganda that would have made it legal to kill homosexuals, though they tried to divert the blame from them directly by saying they were trying to avoid “normalization of homosexuality across the world”. That same organization has been deemed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. These facts alone should be enough to make you think about calling CFA out on that blemish of their otherwise spotless record. What is ultimately at stake here is not whether CFA is going to go out of business, since a free market of both business and ideas necessitates that we have both crappy or subpar food and beliefs. If someone thinks that gays shouldn’t get the same rights as straight people, that’s their prerogative. But when you start trying to legislate those beliefs in reality, that’s where you stop being free under the constitution to do so. The same applies to companies. The goal should not be to protest, boycott or support CFA because of their political stance on gay marriage, but petition them to stop funding hate groups and stay out of politics as much as possible, if not entirely.

Chick-fil-A has stated that they intend to leave the policies of same sex marriage to the government and political arena. If this is the case, then I hope that they also cease their funding to people who are involved in politics. The National Organization for Marriage advocated a boycott of General Mills and Starbucks; plus I believe Million Moms suggested the same for Oreo. The vast majority of companies either 1) aren’t involved or 2) try to do it covertly, as CFA seems to have done in the past and may continue to in the future. Any company should maintain neutrality in this issue, especially when it comes to funding. They can take a position in the nominal sense, but to actively try to advance it through their profits is potentially unconstitutional, if not just insensible. Why waste funds trying to do what the people should be allowed to do without interference from entities that are not individual persons? It’s one thing for explicitly political groups to get donations from individual citizens, but private companies should concentrate on maximizing profit and marketing the items or services in question they provide. It’s just practical common sense.

To separate politics and product completely in terms of being a consumer misses the point, but as a producer, it is essential to doing good and efficient business. Policies and legislation are unnecessary to selling chicken sandwiches, or any other product, food related or otherwise. Just market the items through various media and progress from there. So this is a double edged conclusion. On the one hand, a consumer shouldn’t try to separate product and politics, since they can be interrelated. CFA can be argued to sponsor discrimination, so you shouldn’t go there. But you also should be able to separate the company’s employees from the policies their higher ups, like Dan Cathy support. They may not support that, but they still work there regardless. And for producers, the goal of entrepreneurial enterprises and franchises is to make money, not to use that money for purposes other than making money. Charitable organizations may be an exception, but to advance a partisan agenda is not what you should do with the money you get from people of all political persuasions. Keep your money either to charity or consumer interests and I think everything would become a little better in terms of political campaigns and their natural flow. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

You Can't Boycott The Gay Away

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/06/27/507005/abc-news-invents-fictional-anti-gay-oreo-boycott/?mobile=nc

The recent string of gay pride support from companies like Oreo, Pop Tarts, Chevrolet and the like has inspired anti-gay individuals to suggest boycotting the companies. And in response, supporters of gay rights have taken this suggestion to its most absurd and amusing conclusion: those people should boycott all companies that support gay rights in order to be consistent, which includes Facebook where they first started these protests. The question arises, of course, as to whether political involvement by companies is ever appropriate. It goes without question that limitations on political support and funding from companies are justified. But merely taking a general political position such as supporting marriage equality or the like is distinct in the same way that churches can hold such positions, but not directly support or oppose political candidates, as I spoke about in “Where Religion and PoliticsShould Not Cross”  This sort of qualification of the degree to which a corporation, like a church, can be involved in politics, which should fundamentally be done by the public, composed of individual private citizens, enables the political process to be as fair and objective as it can with so many voices coming together about the big problems, such as the economy and human rights. To outright prohibit that interaction of private groups in public affairs stifles what should be a free market of ideas. But there should be reasonable restrictions based on considerations of the relevance of those private groups to politics. Both church and corporation can have involvement, but economic prohibitions should apply as consistently as those on houses of worship And the involvement doesn’t mean that there is any attempt to force the issue on the buyers, but merely that the company’s ideals are in line with GLBT rights. One can still shop there without aligning politically with those beliefs. Economics and politics can be fundamentally separate in practice even if they can be lumped together in principle.

Any individual can personally disagree with something, but boycotting a company because they don’t share your views, especially on gay rights and such, is not only ridiculous in that the corporation is not forcing gay rights on you, but it’s also not going to change them unless you get a large enough group. Not that the group would be terribly large or have a huge affect on sales anyway. On the contrary, the evidence is pointing towards more and more people supporting gay rights.  And if you really want to boycott all companies that support gay rights, with a bit of research, you’d find there are more companies that support GLBT than those who are more “traditional”, such as Chik Fil-et. And boycotting them as a supporter of gay rights isn’t solving the problem either, since they’re inevitably losing business anyway. A better solution is merely to not be a customer without formally boycotting them. At times, this sort of practice is more beneficial than making a large political statement, though as civil rights in the past were threatened, boycotting those establishments who were the most egregious in violating those rights sent the right message. Simply supporting “traditional” marriage is not the same as treating GLBT employees unfairly, which would be grounds for boycotting justly. While corporations shouldn’t really get into politics, especially when it comes to funding candidates and the like, stating that you stand for basic civil rights for minorities like GLBT is not bad as long as it doesn’t become intrusive. A policy of neutrality is prudent, but at the same time, it can be a business venture, but also reflective that corporations are not just focused on profits, but people as well, so it can work for both aspects.

The economic and entrepreneurial aspect focuses on the likelihood of expanding your demographics. It isn’t just the GLBT community that you’re appealing to, but those who support GLBT rights, which is fast becoming more and more acceptable to one degree or another. It makes perfect sense to state in commercials that you support gay rights. It isn’t necessarily breaching any unspoken ideas about whether companies should speak about these sorts of things. It’d be one thing for companies to start funneling in exorbitant amounts of money to radical gay rights groups (if there are any) in the same way if Chik Fil-et was funneling money to particularly mean anti-gay groups. But merely saying they offer their name in the quest for further advancing GLBT civil liberties isn’t excessive by any means. Just as other companies would have a right to make an advert saying they support the traditional family, it wouldn’t bother me. It just means they’re really hoping that the social conservatives are going to buy their stuff in lieu of many social liberals choosing not to. Either way, there’s a business risk, but that’s what you do in such situations; you gamble.

But companies are not just about advancing in the business world, but also existing in a world of people with feelings, with basic needs and a responsibility on the part of a corporation to not be greedy, but merely covetous of profit and efficiency. The notion of virtuous egotism seems contradictory with a common ethic in American culture rooted from Christianity, which is about selflessness and essentially sacrificing your ego for the advancement of a greater good. While this can be beneficial in a particular setting, it is not absolutely forbidden to be interested in one’s own good alongside being concerned for the welfare of others. One should not coddle or provide excessively for those in need, for this makes them complacent and not motivated to work for their own profits. With companies, this is a matter of moderation. Individuals can become greedy within a company, but that should be restricted as well with principles of self control and not seeking out money at the cost of those under you. The idea that they can be replaced or outsourced is not only callous, but can be considered fairly un-American in the sense of not granting jobs to those who are willing to take them in the very country your company exists. To not give those jobs to the skilled and those who even want to creates a sense of hopelessness and even could encourage the unmotivated to seek more government welfare to provide for them in lieu of gainful employment. In that sense, providing jobs and even being charitable are not signs of any sort of weakness or flawed economic logic, but simply a way everyone can benefit in some sense, though not equally, but within the means of each individual and group associated with them. Families, communities, companies, the interactions are sometimes unrecognized, but are as important as the predictions made for each quarter.

While the controversy of gay rights may eventually become a thing of the past and accepted by a majority of the world’s population, or at least the U.S.’s, corporations have their own responsibilities to consider in relation to minorities even as they progress to greater acceptance and tolerance in society. To help those less fortunate in charitable ways is a method that has been used for a fair amount of U.S. history, at least since the post Depression era. Advancing the cause of social justice by offering one’s influence and voice within the public sphere is another way. Just saying you support gays and will not turn them away is encouraging a tolerant and progressive America without giving special treatment. Keeping political involvement as a corporation to a minimum; that is, sticking to issues instead of candidates and in general instead of partisan terms, can allow a business to be encouraging of the political process, but also be considerate of the public citizens who are the true source of change in the country, not those with the greatest profits. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.