Gay-rights activists, faith-based nonprofits waging online culture war

A culture war is being waged online — gay-rights activists vs. Focus on the Family and other faith-based nonprofits — for the hearts, minds and money of hundreds of big retailers.

College student Ben Crowther and other gay activists have been petitioning companies through a website called Change.org to sever retail links with an online hub called Charity Give Back Group. Crowther claims it supports “anti-gay hate groups” such as the Focus on the Family ministry and other conservative evangelical Christian organizations.

The New York-based CGBG, formerly known as Christian Values Network, allows online shoppers to authorize a percentage of their purchase dollars to go to the charity of their choice, secular or religious, including Colorado Springs- based Focus.

20,000 online signatures

Change.org reported that Crowther, a student at Western Washington University, gathered more than 20,000 online signatures — compelling Apple Inc. to recently remove iTunes from the CGBG network because it enables customers to donate to Focus and its affiliate, the Family Research Council. The ministry and the lobby group oppose gay marriage and also counsel that being gay is a disorder partly attributable to poor parenting.

“We’re no strangers to controversy,” said Focus vice president Gary Schneeberger. “The part about this that makes it particularly concerning to us is this latest wave of business-pressure activism.”

Schneeberger said he would advise retailers: “Don’t take political stands. Just sell shoes to everybody. Don’t put yourselves and the consumer in the awkward position of having to choose where to buy their pens or whatever based on politics.”

Focus on the Family, which offers free family counseling through radio broadcasts and other forums, has had to suspend plans to air a program recorded June 30 at an event featuring TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie, whose company donates a pair of shoes to a poor child for every pair sold. After gay-rights groups created an online storm, he apologized for speaking at the Focus event.

“Had I known the full extent of Focus on the Family’s beliefs,” Mycoskie blogged, “I would have not accepted the invitation.”

Schneeberger said Focus still hopes to share Mycoskie’s story with its 2 million radio listeners, but Mycoskie has a contractual right to block the broadcast.

“We understand some people don’t share our biblical worldview of human sexuality and marriage,” Schneeberger said, “but for them to say we’re not fit to help put shoes on impoverished kids . . . is just wrong.”

CGBG officials also have been fighting back against the activists’ representations. Spokesman Kevin McCullough said neither the federal government nor the Southern Poverty Law Center lists Focus on the Family as a hate group. However, the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council is “vigorously defending itself this year” from hate-group designation by the law center, CGBG said in a statement released Tuesday.

“The activists had a free hand with no challenge to their dishonest message for about five weeks,” McCullough told The Denver Post. “They’re preventing us from doing good things for charities when people purchase diapers, tires, reading glasses and (so on). People of faith buy a lot of stuff. They love to give to charity. We don’t pick where the stipends go to. The consumer does that.”

Some will maintain ties

Focus is among 5,000 nonprofits that receive contributions through CGBG. All the charities, which could number as high as 200,000 organizations, will be hurt by these false statements, McCullough said.

Change.org said a petitioner last month persuaded Microsoft to cut ties with CGBG. Macy’s and Wells Fargo also dropped it.

McCullough said other targeted companies include Wal-Mart, Delta Air Lines, Target and PetSmart, but after executives talked to CGBG officials or Focus president Jim Daly, they have said they will maintain ties with CGBG.

Target.com, the only retailer of many contacted by The Post that responded, enables customers to support a diverse array of causes and groups, spokeswoman Jessica Carlson said Wednesday.

“We don’t discriminate,” Carlson said. “We partner with many different organizations across a broad spectrum.”

“A bullying campaign”

Change.org, in collaboration with Allout.org and San Francisco-based activist Roy Steele’s blog “Tie-Dyed Jive in the (415),” has also petitioned companies such as The Gap Inc., Expedia and many others with what CGBG calls “a bullying campaign fueled by false information.”

In many cases, McCullough said, midlevel company managers made hasty decisions to drop CGBG without vetting the activists’ claims.

“This bullying campaign just started, and yes, we do want to shut you down,” Steele responded by writing online Monday. “Your hate and vitriol is politically motivated.”

“Hate is too big a word to be thrown around with so little discretion,” Focus’ Daly said. “It is a damaging and dangerous thing to hang such an emotional epithet on a person or group because they think differently about some issues than you do. Believing what the Bible says about human sexuality is a personal conviction, not an act of persecution.”

CGBG president John Higgins said the network will push back against the activists’ efforts by doubling the amount it gives to designated charities Monday through Labor Day weekend.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com