Washington, DC — In the face of right-wing attacks by the National Organization for Marriage, consumers around the world are strongly backing Starbucks support of marriage equality. Over the weekend, SumOfUs.org broke 200,000 signers to their “Thanks Starbucks” letter. At the time, NOM’s “Dump Starbucks” campaign had fewer than 20,000 signers.
National Organization of Marriage (NOM)’s call for a national boycott of Starbucks is based on Starbucks’ backing for the recent successful efforts in Washington State, where the company’s headquarters are located, to pass marriage equality.
SumOfUs.org members took to Twitter and Facebook to spread the thanks. The thank you card has been shared more than 200,000 times on Facebook including by prominent human rights activist and former Star Trek star George Takei, who said, “Starbucks was a great corporate citizen and stood up for marriage equality in Washington. Now, the National Organizations for Marriage, a conservative group, is calling for a boycott. I signed this thank you card and I hope my fans will do so as well. Let’s unleash some net power and send a strong message of acceptance and thanks. ”
“We’ve been stunned by the passionate response to “Thank Starbucks” — our most viral campaign ever,” Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director for SumofUs.org said. “Consumers want companies to know that supporting equal rights is good for business. We’ve seen in our campaigns that consumers expect corporations to do right by their workers and by their community. In this case, Starbucks customers are saying loud and clear: Don’t attack supporters of marriage equality. Don’t attack our LGBT friends and families.”
Sign the thank-you card and see live updates on # of signers here: sumofus.org/campaigns/thank-starbucks/.
See live updates on # of times the thank-you card has been shared on Facebook and Twitter here: sumofus.org/share/thank-starbucks-thanks.