Catholic League Ends Its Boycott Of Wal-Mart
A follow-up to yesterday's post regarding the Catholic League's boycott of Wal-Mart based on the store's allegedly "anti-Christmas" animus:
November 11, 2005My Comments:
WAL-MART CAVES; BOYCOTT ENDS
Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on Wal-Mart’s decision to yield to the league’s demands:
“Yesterday, I said the Catholic League’s boycott of Wal-Mart would proceed until the company a) rendered an apology b) withdrew its insane statement regarding the origins of Christmas and c) revised its website. When I left the office last evening, none of the three demands were met. When I checked news reports this morning, and Wal-Mart’s website, all three were met.
“Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman released a statement last night saying, ‘We sincerely apologize to any person or organization that was offended by the inappropriate and inflammatory comments made by this former associate.’ Fogleman was referring to the objectionable remark offered by a Customer Service employee, Kirby, who started the entire controversy by sending the insane statement regarding the origins of Christmas to a female customer. Alas, Kirby has been fired. As for our third demand, Wal-Mart has now adjusted its website so that when a customer types ‘Christmas’ in its search engine, it no longer gets, ‘We’ve brought you to our ‘Holiday’ page based on your search.’ Now the customer is taken directly to a site named ‘Christmas.’
“Wal-Mart says it is not going to change its policy of encouraging employees to say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas.’ This is dumb, but it was never part of the Catholic League’s complaint. We only trigger boycotts when we’ve been grossly offended.
“This is a sweet victory for the Catholic League, Christians in general, and people of all faiths. And it means that Wal-Mart can now enter the Christmas season without this cloud hanging over it.”
While I greatly admire the work of the Catholic League, and as much as I despise retailers' efforts to secularize the birthday of Christ, I can't help feeling that this is one of the silliest "boycotts" I've ever witnessed.
posted by Pro Ecclesia 11:44 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
What seems silly to me is that a corporate-level PR flak for America's largest retailer, America's largest employer, couldn't see that Kirby's stupid email would offend a big section of his customer base, and immediately disavow it.
Instead, we went through this pantomime to get them to do a simple thing they should have seen their way to do on day one.
Plenty of other reasons not to shop at Wal-Mart.
(I'm an employee of a Wal-Mart competitor)
;)
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