Wednesday, July 20, 2011

An open and, probably, pointless letter to Target

Sir or Madam:

As a stockholder and a gay man, I continue to be surprised and upset by the way in which the leadership of Target Corporation continues to spend money—my money—on political campaigns to support anti-gay, anti-gay marriage and anti-canvassing legislation and litigation. Not only does this offend me because it is the money of stockholders—of which I am one—being used to harm gays and lesbians, many of whom own stock in Target and many more of whom have been faithful and continuous customers of Target, but is equally offensive as Target stock prices continue to fall.

The job of the executives of Target and its board is to make the company profitable and more valuable. It makes absolutely no sense to advertise and market the company as progressive and modern and spend money at the same time on retrograde political agendas, agendas which earn Target bad press. I realize that the board is tired of hearing about their spending of our money on these campaigns, but the right way to stop having to hear it is to stop spending the money.

Owning stock in Target has become not only an embarrassment, but also a losing financial decision. How about you stop worrying about gays and lesbians—who otherwise would spend more money at Target stores—and start worrying more about profits, dividends and stock prices? In other words, do your jobs and leave the counterproductive moral posturing to fringe politicians and evangelists, who can amply fund themselves.

Yours,

Tyler Hower