A petition thanking Starbucks for
supporting gay marriage got a boost from the progressive group
MoveOn.org this week.
The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM), the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage,
launched its “Dump Starbucks” boycott after Starbucks CEO Howard
Schultz defended
the company's decision to back Washington state's recently-approved
gay marriage law.
The group SumOfUs.org responded with an
online petition thanking Starbucks for its support.
Now the progressive group MoveOn.org
is calling on its members to join the campaign. Earlier this
week, the group posted the petition on its own website.
“We don't want to just criticize
corporations when they do bad,” the group wrote. “We want to
encourage them when they do good.”
Starbucks has said the boycott was
having no impact on its business.
“We're not seeing any impact,”
Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson told Seattle alternative The
Stranger.
As of Sunday morning, supporters were
outpacing opponents 18 to 1, with more than 463,000 people signing a
thank you card and just over 25,200 pledging to avoid Starbucks shops
and its retail products.
NOM is also fighting off criticism that
it pursued a strategy to pit
minority groups against gay marriage supporters.