Denver Newsroom, Jun 23, 2023 / 11:15 am (CNA).
LGBT Pride displays and merchandise at the retailer Target recently provoked controversy, including calls for boycotts and, in some cases, apparent anti-LGBT harassment and property destruction. This has been followed by apparent pro-LGBT threats of violence against the company after it removed the merchandise from some stores.
Now, attorneys general from 14 states and the District of Columbia have written to the CEO of Target voicing support for its LGBT Pride merchandise and warning that some actions against Target or its employees can have legal consequences.
The June 16 letter to Brian C. Cornell, chair and CEO of Target Corporation, came from the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Minnesota, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
They deplored “intimidation of Target staff” and “destruction of certain Pride-related merchandise” at Target stores. They said that in their view the company’s stores have been the victim of “potentially criminal acts.”
“If Target again finds itself facing anti-LGBTQIA+ harassment — whether of customers or employees — store management or the corporate office are encouraged to reach out to our offices,” the attorneys’ general letter said, using an LGBT acronym that adds queer, intersex, and asexual.
Target has hosted Pride displays for more than a decade. This year’s items have been particularly controversial.
Target has sold adult women’s-style swimwear intended to help transgender-identifying men conceal their genitals. It has rejected claims it sold such swimwear for children, the Associated Press reported. However, it does sell a children’s swimskirt with a tag describing itself as fit for “Multiple Body Types and Gender Expressions.”
One of its merchandise partners, the U.K.-based Abprallen, provided three items with pro-LGBT slogans.
Abprallen designer Eric Carnell sells other fashion designs not used in Target that contain occult imagery. One shirt, modeled by Carnell on Instagram, praises Satan for respecting pronouns, Fox News reported. Other Abprallen merchandise includes a pin that says “heteronormativity is a plague,” while another depicts a guillotine as a “homophobe headrest.”
Carnell is a transgender man (a biological woman who identifies as a man). Carnell claims not to believe in a literal Satan, but treats Satanic imagery as symbolic. Carnell reported receiving hundreds of hostile messages, including death threats, after the Target merchandise and other Abprallen offerings became a focus of controversy on social media.
Target removed Pride offerings from some stores, including “items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,” it said in a May 24 statement.
Some incidents at Target stores have come from vocal critics of Pride displays.
In late May, a man in a Missoula, Montana, Target tore down a Pride merchandise display and harassed two college students described as a transgender couple, The Daily Montanan reported.
In early June, a manager at a Target in South Florida told the Washington Post that some shoppers have called employees “child groomers.”
Unknown persons who depict themselves as LGBT advocates have also threatened violence.
On June 10, in identical emails to news outlets, an unknown person threatened several Target stores in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. The messages accused Target of betraying the LGBT community, the Washington Post reported.
In Lafayette, Louisiana, police searched two Target stores after bomb threats from unknown people claimed Target “betrayed the LGBTQ+ community” and are “pathetic cowards who bowed to the wishes of far-right extremists who want to exterminate us.”
People claiming to be angry about the removal of merchandise made several bomb threats to stores in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah.
The FBI and the regional Joint Terrorism Task Force are assisting with some investigations of the threats. Local police also investigated Target stores for safety threats.
The 15 attorneys general told Target CEO Cornell that they understood why the company would pull some Pride merchandise on grounds of worker and customer safety. They voiced readiness to address “anti-LGBTQIA+ threats and harassment” and said Target’s Pride merchandise “helps LGBTQIA+ people see that they enjoy considerable support and that loud and intimidating fringe voices and bullies do not represent the views of society at large.”
They said that as Target considers its response, the company should be mindful of its obligations under their states’ anti-discrimination laws that protect sexual orientation and gender identity.
“While these laws certainly do not create a legal obligation for retailers to offer any particular merchandise or create any particular displays, they do demand that customers be treated equally,” their letter said.
Massachusetts’ law, the letter noted, allows customers or other members of the public to be held liable if they discriminate on the basis of a protected class, and those who believe their rights are threatened by threats, harassment, intimidation, or coercion may seek legal injunctions. The Minnesota Human Rights Act also bars anyone from intentionally obstructing or preventing any person from complying with its law.
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Cognitive dissonance!…we read:”Target has sold adult women’s-style swimwear intended to help transgender-identifying men conceal their genitals.”
Butt, also, that “…intimidating fringe voices and bullies do not represent the views of society at large.” Large in what way?
What’s even more cognitively dissonant is that actual women’s swimwear is usually immodestly designed to reveal body parts.
Why aren’t they “proud” their body parts? Or, uh, lack thereof?
Am I the only one who finds this intervention by attorneys general weird?
Oh, I am sure the atty generals are just a honorable as the folks in the Justice Dept or the FBI. Weird? The democrats are all about intimidation. My guess would be that every single one of those atty generals are democrats.This is status normal for them.Twisting our culture and turning life upside down. My advice to every sane person out there: don’t shop at Target. There should be NO violence from the right on ANY of these issues as it only gives them an excuse to further erode our constitutional rights.However, remember that Target sells NOTHING that is unique. Its stuff you can easily find elsewhere.Do it. Shop someplace else. They only understand financial losses. Its the only way we can be heard.
No, you aren’t. It is weird, and it is disgraceful.
I have long believed that our best response to much of this madness is humor – just plain flat-out laughter – these people can NOT stand to be laughed at.
“Carnell is a transgender man (a biological woman who identifies as a man). Carnell claims not to believe in a literal Satan, but treats Satanic imagery as symbolic.”
Carnell is not any kind of man. The sentence should read, “Carnell is a woman, but pretends to be a man.” And instead of repeating the name several times, it should have been replaced with “she.”
I think that Target and other retail businesses should not be displaying “PRIDE” merchandise “front and center” and making their promotion of PRIDE a part of their promotion of their store. If they wish to sell items targeted (pun!) to LGBTQ+ and other groups that they consider “marginalized,” that’s fine–but they don’t need to make a prominent display of their intent or turn it into a media ad campaign.
I doubt the Target management would agree with me.
HOWEVER…what are we, the American consumers, to do? Target, Kohl’s, WalMart, and other “big box” stores offer a fairly good quality of merchandise at very reasonable prices. For years, they have offered plus-size clothing not only to adults, but for children, too–yes, I know that being overweight is a “sin” in the eyes of many devout Christians, but…let’s get real. 50% of Americans are overweight, and in the past, have been forced to order clothing resembling gunny sacks from mail-order places that don’t care about “fashion.” Then came the “specialty shops” that sold plus-size clothing–but at rich-people prices. Target and its ilk are Godsends, as far as I and many other overweight Americans are concerned. We can look and feel good and not go broke!
But Target offers more than just plus-sized clothing. We can buy almost anything at Target for a reasonable price. Home decor (Magnolia!), electronics, tools, gardening products, toys, books, cards, gifts, baby and toddler products (clothing, furniture, etc.)–again, reasonably-priced!!
Are there stores (other than Hobby Lobby, which doesn’t sell clothing, tools, etc.!) that reject anti-Christian merchandise and philosophies, and still sell a good selection of reasonably-priced products? Are “Christian” stores located everywhere, even in smaller cities and towns, or are they only “catalogue stores” that require buying online? Are they open on Sundays, which for many people, is the only day (due to jobs, babysitting needs, etc.) they have to shop for necessities. Do they offer many jobs to people without a college degree? Are there still any “SAFE” downtowns with a number of stores that offer a variety of merchandise at shopping-center prices (and has parking that isn’t “parallel)?
Like it or not, most of us need to shop. We don’t live on farms, we can’t grow our own food and make our own clothing from cotton from our fields and wool that we have grown on our own sheep, we want to train up our children to live IN the world but not be OF the world, and we can’t isolate ourselves from everyone except our own parish. Target is affordable for many of us, located in our neighborhoods, fairly safe to visit, and allows us to redeem our time well by streamlining our shopping to just one location.
I think our best course of action is to pray for the LGBTQ+ community whenever we see a “PRIDE” display of merchandise, or a PRIDE festival (which will happen today in my city), and “aspire to live quietly, to mind our own affairs, and to work with our hands…so that we may behave properly towards outsiders…” (I Thess. 4:11-12).
If we have the opportunity to befriend someone who is LGBTQ+, as I do (musician), we should do it! One of my best friends is gay, and we have great times together. He is a man of faith and a wonderful church musician (not Catholic or Evangelical Protestant).
The LGBTQ community is small compared to the rest of Americans. Yes, they look “BIG” because they have powerful forces on their side (media, entertainment industry, journalists, several prominent billionaires, etc.), and because their festivals and shows attract huge crowds of young people and others who are trying to be “tolerant” and “inclusive” like their media and online gurus.
But they’re not “big.” Those of us with same-sex attraction (or who live in celibacy due to our unmarried/widowed/clerical state) and who do not have gender dysphoria are in the majority, and we too have powerful allies, mainly our churches, our faith-based schools, our families, and above all else, our God!
And the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is not a healthy one. The media doesn’t portray the darker side of these lifestyles, the diseases and other physical conditions and injuries; e.g., that most people who undergo transition treatment (meds) and surgeries do not live past their 40s. They don’t discuss the high rate of depression among the LGBTQ+ community (and if they do, they blame “intolerance” as the reason). They don’t reveal the loneliness of many LGBTQ+ people who live in poverty, unemployment, and isolation (again, if this is mentioned in media, the “straight” community, and often the churches and religious people, are blamed). And they don’t talk about the high rate of suicide in the LGBTQ+ community (again, claiming “non-acceptance by the straight community as the cause).
I think we should keep shopping at Target unless we have other resources to acquire what we need. I think we should befriend LGBTQ+ people who come into our sphere of influence. I think we should train up our children in the way they should go and keep very young children away from sinful influences, including most television and of course, the online world. I think our school-aged children need to be in faith-based schools. I think the Church needs to hugely increase their outreach to teenagers and that those who are gifted in working with this group should be paid a living wage by the Church to do that work. I think that the Church needs to continue to reach out to families and provide ministries that help them to grow closer to God and to each other. I think that Christians should not isolate themselves from the world, but attempt to permeate and infuse with Christian love and joy areas that are often strongholds of LGBTQ+ people, e.g., music, theater, dance, visual art, fashion, interior design, journalism, various sports (e.g., figure skating), etc. I think the Church needs to welcome LGBTQ+ people who are willing to submit to Church teaching regarding their sexual orientation.
And I think we need to do all of this in the LOVE of Christ.
The above comment (Mrs. Whitlock) bothers me. It seems to consider the Target boycott an attack on persons. Then I come to the penultimate sentence, “I think the Church needs to accept [SSA] people who are willing to submit to Church teaching regarding their sexual orientation”. Is this in dispute?