Amazon.com vs. Traditional Marriage

By Rod Dreher • July 27, 2012, 9:21 AM

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com chief, is giving $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington state’s gay marriage law from a fall referendum. Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have both given money to the cause as well.

Shockingly, a marriage traditionalist like me will continue to buy books from Amazon, and continue to use Microsoft Word for Mac to work on my own book. Why? Because I like their products and services. That, and I am a tolerant person, and I believe that same-sex marriage is an issue on which people can disagree without removing themselves from the company of decent people. Second, I know that my own ability to participate in social and economic life depends on commercial tolerance from others — a tolerance I can’t expect to have if I don’t extend. Besides, to borrow a description from openly gay Chick-fil-A devotee Antoine Dodson, I believe Amazon.com’s service is bangin’.

Question to the room: Where do you draw the line on giving your trade to someone over a political issue? When I lived in NYC, there were a number of small businesses in my neighborhood owned by Arab Muslim immigrants. My guess is that their views on a number of things I cared about were rather the opposite of my own, but I still bought groceries from them. The only one I boycotted was a bodega in which I observed the owner laughing and smiling an hour after the 9/11 attacks. Didn’t feel right after that to buy anything from him. Otherwise, though, I had no idea what the political and cultural views of these business owners was, and as long as they treated me with respect and sold things I wanted to buy at a fair price, I didn’t care.

For me, the general boycott line comes in matters literally of life and death. I could see withholding my trade from a company that in some significant way funded abortion, but I can’t think of a single instance in which I do that.

UPDATE: Go Andrew Sullivan!:

Intimidating a business because its chairman expresses his perfectly legitimate – if to me, misguided – views, should have absolutely nothing to do with a civil rights movement. Civil rights movements are about expanding freedom, including for those with whom we disagree. The impulse by some well-meaning heterosexual allies to ban or shut down or somehow use the power of the state to police thought in this way is simply anathema to what we ought to stand for. There is no contradiction between marriage equality and a robust defense of the rights of those who oppose marriage equality – including maximal religious freedom and maximal free speech.In fact, it is vital that we eschew such tactics, as they distract from a positive argument that has been solidly winning converts for two decades.

Posted in Consumerism, Economics, Sex and Sexuality. Tagged Amazon.com, Bill Gates, gay marriage, Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, same-sex marriage, Steve Ballmer, traditional marriage.

70 Responses to Amazon.com vs. Traditional Marriage

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Bob Jones says:

July 27, 2012 at 6:52 pm

I have to admit I haven’t followed this story all that closely, as it seems pretty trivial to me, but one thought cross my mind upon hearing how crowded some CFA restaurants suddenly are.

Namely, given the invented nature of this “crisis” and the nature of the comments that started it. Seriously, no business professional, regardless of how faithful could be that oblivious to public reaction. I have to think that this controversy serves CFA’s marketing and business growth strategies well, after all they now have the opportunity to expand their business on the basis of some moral platform, and given that CFA seems to operate as a sort of religious cult – see the Forbes article linked above – this who fiasco seems to serve them quite well.

Maybe I am being too cynical, but bating a series of activists groups (who are just looking to be offended by something) with the kind of language that Caffey used and then getting some tin-horn local politicians to say stupid things certainly seems to be benefiting CFA. Given how much they have been talked about on numerous media outlets for free, this seems to be a boon to their business.

Anyway, just a thought.
B Lewis says:

July 27, 2012 at 7:01 pm

Out of curiosity, I physically visited three area Chick-Fil-A restaurants over the past three days, arriving at lunchtime (c. 12.00 local) each day. In each case I found the stores completely full, with parking spaces filled and, in some cases, long lines of people waiting for service.

This means nothing in statistical terms, of course, but as an anecdote it is of some interest to me. After all, I would guess that most of the many people I saw spending their money at these stores were aware of the recent controversy. Of course, the local Chick-Fil-A stores are always busy, so this sudden addition to the throng may just have been a fluke.

I noticed no anti-Chick-Fil-A protestors at any location.
Bob Jones says:

July 27, 2012 at 7:11 pm

RinTX,

I think the difference is whether these are just local politicians huffing anf puffing, or if they are actually actively working to hinder the business then that is a different story.

From what I have heard of Chicago the whole permit issue has been going on for a while, and primarily has been focused (for about 8 months now) on traffic flow – likely for the drive-thru – and ensuring the CFA would adhere to the City’s anti-discrimination ordinances, including updating their employee handbook to that effect. That seems to be within the realm of securing a permit and business license. Especially as it relates to requiring compliance with existing general plan, zoning, and municipal ordinances.
Joe mc. Fa ul says:

July 27, 2012 at 7:14 pm

I boycott only a few enterprises. I have never seen nor ever will see a Roman Polanski movie and I won’t ever see aWoody Allen Movie. I currently boycott the Catholic Church. They will never get a dime from me for any reason.

I urge everyone else to boycott the Church, too.

Thise boycotts may cause personal pain, but I saw Hannah and Her Sisters so I suspect I’m not missing much.
Bob Jones says:

July 27, 2012 at 7:14 pm

“Folks that pray in front of abortion clinics and engage in side walk counseling are saints and should keep on keepin’ on”

Except when the clinic they are protesting is in the same strip mall as your daughter’s dance studios, and these fools accost your teenage daughter every Wednesday afternoon and try to prevent her from walking to her dance class. Then they are not saints, just a bunch of annoying freaks.
M. M. says:

July 27, 2012 at 9:19 pm

And this pretty much explains why The Left systematically beats The Right to pieces: they are not polite, they don’t doubt, they WIN. If they want to shut down their critics or to thwart the spreading of some idea they just boycott like there’s no tomorrow.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

July 27, 2012 at 9:48 pm

Brian, I haven’t heard about the businesses that support chopping a child into bits or injecting it with saline until it dies.

Could you be more specific, so I can dismantle what we all know you are implying, but so far don’t have the plain honesty to say openly in language we all recognize as to common meanings?

Right now you remind me of the old campfire song about Johnny Rebeck, who invented a machine for turning cats and dogs into sausages… not a bad idea in my opinion. We could export them to China, decrease our trade imbalance, and stop importing high quality protein for pet food that could have fed starving children in the regions we import it from.
Naturalmom says:

July 28, 2012 at 12:34 am

And this pretty much explains why The Left systematically beats The Right to pieces: they are not polite, they don’t doubt, they WIN.

Seriously? This is funny because I run in mostly (not exclusively) left-leaning circles, and my lefty friend are *constantly* bemoaning this *exact* point. Except they (the Left) are the polite and “soft” ones and the Right act with discipline and without doubt and beat the Left to pieces and WIN. I’m totally serious. Guess we all see what we want to see, huh?
Mont D. Law says:

July 28, 2012 at 10:11 am

[Except when the clinic they are protesting is in the same strip mall as your daughter’s dance studios, and these fools accost your teenage daughter every Wednesday afternoon and try to prevent her from walking to her dance class. Then they are not saints, just a bunch of annoying freaks.]

How dare you put your daughter’s shallow vain desire to dance above the lives of all those butchered children! What kind of child are you raising?
Public_Defender says:

July 28, 2012 at 1:09 pm

I only rarely “boycott” businesses, but I do use politics as a factor in where I send my money. I’ve known for a longtime that Chick-fil-A’s owner gives money to a lot of causes I oppose, so I saw no reason to shop at his stores, especiallu since I have always had other options.

Now, I can’t imaging going to a Chick-fil-A. I have at least 5 same-sex couples in my circle of friends, neighbors and co-workers, two of them with kids. I would feel like I was spitting in their faces by shopping at Chick-Fil-A. I just couldn’t enjoy a meal from that company.

Similarly, I haven’t gone into a WalMart for years. There are plenty of other alternatives (Amazon.com, for one), so it’s easy to avoid a place that I know drives down wages for low income Americans, asks taxpayers to pick up their health insurance through Medicaid, and ruthlessly crushes unions. Why give money to a company whose practices I oppose when I have other options?

That may seem fickle, but it’s reality. No boycott will succeed if people really want the company’s products. That’s part of why right-wing religious failed to sustain a meaningful boycott against Disney and its affiliates. There are also checks against unreasonable boycotts–if your cause isn’t popular enough, you will face a counter-boycott or make the business more popular.

But back to this case. I see boycotts against businesses who work to weaken and hurt families apwith same-sex parents as tit for tat. The businesses want to hurt gay families, so I want to make them feel some pain in return.

Also, many on the religious right want to essentially boycott gay families–the businesses want the right not serve gay families (e.g., not to provide services for weddings, not to rent them housing, etc.). Others want to partially boycott gay families by paying their gay employees less than straight employees (by only giving gay employees only individual, not family, health insurance). Again, a boycott is just tit for tat.

I can see why a conservative would boycott based on abortion, so I’ll end this with a question for Dreher: Is there any cause you disagree with that you would consider a legitimate cause for a boycott? Or are boycotts only for people who agree with you?
Caroline says:

July 28, 2012 at 4:59 pm

How does one distinguish boycotting from non consumption for reasons such as no interest or need of the product? I “boycott” vast numbers of products and businesses all the time and would be hard put to show my support of a cause by boycotting a business or a product.
scotch meg says:

July 28, 2012 at 5:14 pm

I’m late to come back – have been in Maine Seriously, I’m just back from northern Maine. I’m from New England. I did look at the website, but I didn’t believe what they said about rocky stone walls. I did a little more scoping around the web and turned up the fact that these two guys are partners in more ways than one, which is their business. But I’m still avoiding their products, because I think they are not only being political but trying to avoid the consequences of being political. Secret handshake kind of stuff. Am I cynical? Perhaps…
Public_Defender says:

July 28, 2012 at 5:35 pm

On a side note, I don’t see how you can argue that Amazon is acting against traditional marriage. As far as I know, they aren’t trying to ban opposite-sex couples from marrying.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

July 28, 2012 at 7:01 pm

Well taking the obvious example of Komen…

For years, anti-abortion pressure groups told Komen that if they would just rescind the rather limited funding Komen gave to Planned Parenthood, a torrent of money would pour in from pro-life donors.

Komen tried it. They brought in a new vice president for that purpose. There was a reasonable response from pro-life individuals, but there was a huge volume of donations lost from people who were incensed that Komen gave in. Komen felt more heat and did another 180 degree turn.

Moral: Just do what you do, and let the donors, or customers, do what they do.
Rod Dreher says:

July 28, 2012 at 7:05 pm

Komen felt more heat and did another 180 degree turn.

And didn’t return the $100 I gave them to support them when the pro-choice money dried up, when I asked them to do so after they flip-flopped.
brians says:

July 28, 2012 at 10:09 pm

“If some of them individually decide to break the law because they feel they have justification, that is between them and the local law enforcement officers.”

I think this is a really great point, Franklin. I wasn’t looking to get a rise out of you. I know better by now. But what if, in fact, they have a genuinely Augustinian justification?
Siarlys Jenkins says:

July 28, 2012 at 11:11 pm

Rod, I recall you felt strongly about that, but having been responsible for some small scale fundraising, I think once you send the donation, your right to demand it back is limited. You don’t have to donate again, and I’m sure you won’t. But you were acting as a partisan in a partisan drama, and the tide of battle turned against you. You probably feel like the union soldiers who were winning the Battle of Bull Run the first three fourths of the day. They didn’t get to take it all back either.
L617 says:

July 29, 2012 at 8:36 am

Like Rod, I patronize many businesses owned or operated by individuals who likely hold personal opinions and beliefs counter to my own. I have no problem giving them my business. However, I draw the line where the establishment or its owners makes their opinions known — which, to be fair, has almost never happened among the small business owners I patronize — AND where I believe the benefit of continuing my patronage is outweighed by the cost to my conscience.

For example, there’s a chain of gourmet pizza restaurants here in the Boston area. I LOVE their product, but after reading numerous news reports about how they’ve exploited their Brazilian employees, cannot in good conscience continue to give them my business.

I can’t say I will boycott Chick Fil A since there isn’t one near me. But as a gay man, when presented with the opportunity to buy their food I’m certainly not going to give them my $$ knowing that a percent of it is going to causes that attempt to hurt me.
Franklin Evans says:

July 29, 2012 at 8:57 am

Brians: I was reacting to the high pejorative index* of your post. I’m glad to see it was phrasing with sincere intent behind it. Text-only is just so frustrating when it comes to accurately getting a person’s intentions.

Anyway, you’ll have to help me with “Augustinian justification”. As I understand it, solely from reading what may not be reliable sources, this concept absolves a person’s actions if they are motivated by pure faith. That purity being, I presume, confirmed in and by the words of God.

That was glib because I lack confidence in the concept. Given that caveat, I don’t see how Augustinian justification really changes the picture. Isn’t that how many martyrs were made? Isn’t that why modern missionaries still enter countries where proselytizing is banned by law and punishable by prison and torture? Just as in my example, those people make choices, they face the consequences of their actions, and life goes on (or doesn’t) from there.

Please forgive me for a neutral disregard for such people as individuals. I’m not heartless. I’m just trying to remain true to the abstract premise here.

* An esoteric usage. The psychology of marketing uses indices to predict the impact of advertising language on target cohorts. I don’t know that they have one for pejorative connotation, but they should.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

July 29, 2012 at 10:00 pm

L617, I think you have hit the appropriate distinction on the head. If the operation of the business itself delivers a product you appreciate via a process (notable exploitation of employees) that you abhor, you might choose not to patronize the business.

That said, I admit I shop at Wal-Mart occasionally.

On the other hand, if a business put a sign in the window advocating for a candidate I abhor, I might well continue to patronize the business. But then, I live in Wisconsin, where people who wanted to recall Walker, and people who stood by him, live right next door to each other, where 6 percent of the voters in 2004 split their ticket between Russ Feingold and George W. Bush.