As many of you know, I'm getting married next year to a wonderful, kind, intelligent and beautiful woman named Katy. We signed up for a generic wedding website because people are hopefully coming from all over the world to share the day with us, and we wanted to make things as easy as possible in terms of travel, accommodation, and of course the registry. It's all very streamlined. Among a few others, we signed up for the Target registry online. We even added a dozen or so items.
Unfortunately, Katy and I recently discovered that Target (as well as Best Buy) make large campaign contributions to candidates who wish to deny people the right to be married. I am to understand that the company's reasons are purely economic, that their campaign contributions are a business decision. But, that's just not good enough for me. It rings hollow, much like the arguments in favor of this lawful iniquity. Every person is equal to every other under the law regardless of race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. Any two people should have the right to be married to one another, to be as happy in their lives together as Katy and I are / will be.
The opposition to gay marriage is nothing but Jim Crow in another guise.
If Target and Best Buy want to support some candidate's economic policies, that is entirely their prerogative. However, removing this particular bigotry from their political platform should be an absolute precondition before any company will donate our money to them — but my money will not go to those candidates. As always, the power to change a company's policy lies in our wallets.
Katy and I simply cannot conscience funneling money to such a company, certainly not via our wedding registry. This was an easy call. Target got the boot.
(Nota Bene: Our marriage church has performed gay weddings for decades, long before the law was behind them. And somehow, some how, society has resisted collapse. Religion-based arguments don't hold a lot of water with us.)
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