What Hath Target to do with Chick-fil-a?
In recent weeks, we have watched Anheuser-Busch and Target suffer backlash for marketing decisions. According to recent information, Anheuser-Busch stock has dropped $27 billion,1 while Target (a more recent fiasco) has dropped $13.8 billion.2 Of course, support of LGBTQ+ agendas by large corporations is nothing new. Disney has subtly (or boldly) been leaving little hints throughout their films, from the quick kiss in The Rise of Skywalker3 to the open relationship in Lightyear4 (which admittedly I have only read about). Then there was the “Don’t Say Gay” ordeal.5 Various stores I’ve walked through, services I’ve streamed from, or websites have had something about Pride Month as June approaches.
The boycotts might be a continuation of a great American tradition: in 1773, a number of Americans threw 342 tea-chests into Boston Harbor in protest of taxation and monopolization by the East India Company. Videos surfaced after April 1 showing individuals destroying Anheuser-Busch products.6 Such boycotts demonstrate the principles of democracy applied to the market, which is a benefit of a capitalist market and liberal society. If a business corporation makes a decision which goes against the will of any group within the system, the group can “vote against” the corporation by boycott. Instead of Target or Anheuser-Busch, shoppers can buy from Walmart or Guiness (or choose to go local… microbreweries are popping up everywhere).
Target and Anheuser-Busch are not the first corporations to push an LGBTQ+ agenda. However, these two have faced significant backlash which, as far as I am aware, is a new phenomenon. Even as the gift of democracy is freedom to choose (whether representatives or corporations), the burden of democracy is the call upon the citizen to educate himself. An informed citizen is able to make decisions based upon their moral system. An investigation into why the mob deemed these companies particularly heinous is beyond my scope. Nonetheless, the boycotts signal that consumers had a moral code which, when breached in a certain manner, put off the consumers entirely.
One of the arguments I heard (and made) in the early days of corporations going woke was, “Why can’t companies just make a product? Why do they have to preach their woke agenda?” The argument makes sense. If a company is a company, just do what the company does. Don’t get moral about it. However, I’m no longer convinced of this argument.
My disagreement with the argument was made clearer when I heard of Aaron Renn’s Three Evangelical Worlds: positive, neutral and negative.7 I suspect that as evangelicalism transitioned from a positive world to a neutral world, Christians were caught in an awkward spot. Christian morals had been assumed for a long period of time, which essentially made Christianity normative. Even in a neutral world, it’s difficult to disentangle what is Christian and what is not, since the assumptions of the secular world are rooted in hidden assumptions borrowed from Christianity. Still, the neutral world presupposes a “neutrality” that we can all agree on, as long as we tone down the offensive parts of any group. As Evangelicals move into the negative world, neutrality is breaking down. Conflicts with Christianity and the woke left become clearer and clearer.
The three worlds show different secular approaches to ethics. In a positive world, Christian morality is normative. In a neutral world, Christian morality is acceptable, as long as it isn’t offensive. In the negative world, Christian morality is ethically wrong.
The argument, “Why can’t they just make products?” assumes the possibility of neutrality, along the lines of a secular person telling a Christian to keep their faith out of their politics. In both cases, the objection seems to be rooted in the belief that moral values not inherent to the task need to be left out. If Target sells clothes, just make clothes. If you are voting for a political candidate, make only a political decision.
Such an attitude represents the triumph of Rousseau over Burke in our way of thinking. Religion plays little part in Rousseau’s construction of society. Government is made to deal only with the things that everyone can agree on, to grossly simplify. Rousseau resists the dangers of the “pre-enlightened” societies which wed the church and state to the effect of great corruption. Burke also separates church and state, but posits a co-dependency between the two. The kind of order which laws set in place are maintained as proper and good through the sentiments of society. Christian manners and principles, while not always legislated immediately through law, ought to exist alongside the law to make it lovely and desirable.
When it comes to the market, someone like Rousseau might advocate that companies just produce a product without worrying about an agenda. Someone more like Burke could object: your business is involved in a society which is concerned with more than just production. Indeed, as Jacob Marley tells Scrooge, “Mankind was my business.” An astute observer may recognize agendas beyond the profit margin in many companies. BoxLunch directs a portion of their profits to feeding the hungry.8 Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday. Even the kinds of products that companies produce make assumptions about man or the world. Fashion companies suggest that people should dress in a certain way. Spotify suggests that music ought to be listened to in a certain way. I’m sitting in a coffee shop right now which is cashless: “safer for the team” and “smoother service” are the given reasons. Companies are full of hidden ethical assumptions.
“Why can’t Anheuser-Busch just make beer?” misses the mark. They have already been holding an agenda. Most probably, this is the first time companies’ agendas have glaringly differed from the one making the complaint. The problem, then, is not the fact that the company has an agenda. Companies should have agendas, and it may be unavoidable for companies to have an agenda. The problem is not that the company has an agenda. The problem is in the agenda itself.
It may be that, as companies suffer financial losses, the LGBTQ+ agenda will shrink into the background. Profit may triumph over politics. Nevertheless, the recent occasions with Anheuser-Busch and Target remind us that companies can and do tangle themselves in moral issues, and that a democratic element in the market allows the masses to cast their votes for or against companies based on their agendas. That corporations hold agendas is not new; however, the conflicts between buyer and vendor reveal that we have less common ground than we used to. Many Christians have already actively sought the preservation of Christianity by taking advantage of a liberal society (in the true sense); whether electing conservative candidates to office, engaging in politics on a local level, or choosing private education. Perhaps the shopping mall is the next front.
https://nypost.com/2023/06/02/bud-light-parent-anheuser-buschs-stock-lost-27b-over-dylan-mulvaney/
https://nypost.com/2023/05/31/targets-stock-loses-12-7-billion-hits-lowest-level-since-2020/
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/star-wars-kiss-lesbian-the-rise-of-skywalker-new-mutants-queer-scene-a9692476.html
https://www.ncregister.com/features/parental-warning-lightyear-includes-same-sex-kiss-relationship
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/27/disney-ex-ceo-chapek-called-desantis-over-dont-say-gay-book.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wingers-destroying-budweiser-beer-dylan-mulvaney-lgbtq-marketing-2023-4
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/02/the-three-worlds-of-evangelicalism
https://www.boxlunch.com/boxlunch-gives/
Great essay Sam!