Support or Boycot

[dennis48187]

During a K of C meeting the other day one Knight said we should boycot certain large
companies because of who they give money for support.

For example he mentioned to boycot a company because they support gay marriages or radical propositions.

First of all I do not believe we all should leave all the work up to the few.

But if we boycotted a company for what their board of directors supported In my opinion we would not be able to do much of anything, because again I believe that no matter how small or large the amount companies support some programs that most of us do not support or believe.

My question is should we boycot a company for what they support?

 

[fermat]

I think it depends on the magnitude of the issue and the level of support they give. Do they give a few thousand dollars to the local gay pride group or do they devote significant resources to an issue? It can be very difficult to tell which company is supporting what.

If I know that a company is supporting a cause I object to, then I won’t use that business. If I am not sure, I will still use the company, but try and find out. If nothing else, call the company and ask them which causes they support.

 

[AdriannaJean]

I would say boycott it. How is it different than accepting money from United Way which gives money to Planned Parenthood? If you make announcements in local parishes that you are not accepting support from certain companies anymore because they support un-Catholic values and ask them to raise the finances you lost, it might just work. It did in Edmonton a while ago when they stopped accepting money from United Way…

The Knights of Columbus are FIRST a Catholic group, then secondly they are a group that requires money to help the community. It needs to tend to its Catholic identity first and then work on raising money to do things.

 

[Mattapoisett64]

I think it depends on the magnitude of the issue and the level of support they give. Do they give a few thousand dollars to the local gay pride group or do they devote significant resources to an issue? It can be very difficult to tell which company is supporting what.

If I know that a company is supporting a cause I object to, then I won’t use that business. If I am not sure, I will still use the company, but try and find out. If nothing else, call the company and ask them which causes they support.

I think this is a reasonable position. A number of the calls to boycott that appear here seem to be based on extreme overreaction – for example, the recent Quiznos thread that accused them of promoting the “homosexual agenda” for what basically was a commercial where a sub sandwich was put into a talking oven imitating the HAL computer in the movie 2001. A number of companies accused of supporting gay rights or Planned Parenthood turn out to have “matching gift” programs where they are not legally allowed to discriminate in terms of matching gifts their employees make to organizations of the *employees’ *choice.

A prominent person in our parish is circulating a “refuse to use the money” flyer concerning the new U.S. coinage that supposedly dropped the “In God We Trust” motto. (It turns out to be placed on the sides of the coins – not a great place for it, but still.) These kinds of campaigns catch fire then seem to move totally outside the bounds of reason - such as the infamous Proctor & Gamble “Satanic symbol” crusade of a few years ago that was totally bogus.

There are certainly organizations I would refuse to use or support, in fact the United Way being one. But I think people should be wary of these repeated calls to boycott whole organizations based on flimsy, misunderstood, or non-existent evidence – sort of “corporate McCarthyism.”