Homophobia at Starbucks
Jun. 14th, 2011 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI've been keeping a very careful eye on this story today:
I Know Starbucks is Not an Anti-Gay, Homophobic Company (by Policy)…. BUT…
The letter was written by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
golfshirt6 (see the original post here), but the post that is garnering all the hits (above) was written by her wife. And boy, it's going viral quickly. The post, in thirty hours, has gotten about 15,000 hits, and is being Tweeted and Facebooked everywhere (including Starbucks' Facebook page itself). And Starbucks is noticing. Their Twitter feed today is mostly responses to it (e.g., we're looking into it, because we want to resolve this right away. This is NOT what our company stands for.) The original poster reports that she just got off the phone with Starbucks corporate, so apparently some action is being taken.
See, this is why we need to get ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimation Act) passed that the Republicans keep shooting down. No one should be berated in front of customers and then fired for their sexual orientation.
I will be exceedingly interested to learn more concerning Starbucks' corporate response. So far they seem to be doing well, although obviously this is a huge black eye for their company. But this is a great example of how a bystander can stand up and say, "This is NOT okay." And make a real difference.
Good luck to Jeffrey. And Starbucks, gee, I sure wouldn't like to be your public relations manager today.
Edited to add: Here's Starbucks' initial response.
Edited to add again:: The blogger has now been connected with Jeffrey, the man who was fired, and he has written a letter to her. See here.
I Know Starbucks is Not an Anti-Gay, Homophobic Company (by Policy)…. BUT…
The letter was written by
golfshirt6 (see the original post here), but the post that is garnering all the hits (above) was written by her wife. And boy, it's going viral quickly. The post, in thirty hours, has gotten about 15,000 hits, and is being Tweeted and Facebooked everywhere (including Starbucks' Facebook page itself). And Starbucks is noticing. Their Twitter feed today is mostly responses to it (e.g., we're looking into it, because we want to resolve this right away. This is NOT what our company stands for.) The original poster reports that she just got off the phone with Starbucks corporate, so apparently some action is being taken.See, this is why we need to get ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimation Act) passed that the Republicans keep shooting down. No one should be berated in front of customers and then fired for their sexual orientation.
I will be exceedingly interested to learn more concerning Starbucks' corporate response. So far they seem to be doing well, although obviously this is a huge black eye for their company. But this is a great example of how a bystander can stand up and say, "This is NOT okay." And make a real difference.
Good luck to Jeffrey. And Starbucks, gee, I sure wouldn't like to be your public relations manager today.
Edited to add: Here's Starbucks' initial response.
Edited to add again:: The blogger has now been connected with Jeffrey, the man who was fired, and he has written a letter to her. See here.