Best Buy and Target Risk Losing $759 Billion in LGBT Consumer Spending From Gay Rights Boycotts (TGT, BBY)

Here’s why the U.S. retail industry in general and Target (TGT) and Best Buy (BBY)  in particular can’t afford to ignore the ongoing boycotts that are being led by the LGBT community in protest of corporate campaign contributions to an anti-gay rights politicial candidate. According to statistics quoted by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a gay rights advocacy organization:

• The buying power of the LGBT community was $759 billion in 2009
• 78% of LGBT people are likely to do business with companies that are known to have gay-friendly workplaces
• More than 300,000 people have used the LGBT shopping guide published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to make buying decisions

The largest U.S. retail chains have a customer base in the millions, so 300,000 lost customers scattered around 50 states may not seem significant. But in the past three years, we’ve seen retailers do some crazy Hail Mary marketing in order to lure customers through the front door. To alienate 300,000 consumers in one fell swoop is not an insignificant thing. And certainly it is not fiscally responsible in the midst of what is only a technical recession recovery to drive consumers with $759 billion in their pockets to the doorsteps of the competition.

Last week the HRC announced that it would be removing both Target (TGT) and Best Buy (BBY) from its list of gay-friendly companies recommended on its LGBT shopping guide. The HRC has apparently made good on that threat because as of this writing, Target and Best Buy are now absent from that list.

Target has been the main target of the consumer protests that refuse to die, but Best Buy is equally as culpable in its support of a Minnesota political candidate who openly opposes gay rights. While the support of the candidate is offensive to the LGBT community, the betrayal is worse. At the political point of purchase, both Best Buy and Target proved that gaining a political advantage was more important than losing LGBT customers.

In other words, it seems apparent that to Target and Best Buy, money is more important than relationships. And worse than that, money is more important than trust.

The reason the LGBT community feels so betrayed is because Target and Best Buy are both well-known for their gay-friendly workplace policies. Both companies received perfect Corporate Equality Index Ratings from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) organization in 2010. This means that in every way that the HRC measures, Best Buy and Target are gay-friendly with their employees. With their perfect scores, Best Buy and Target both earned a spot on the HRC’s 2010 “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality” list.

There are specific sexual orientation non-discrimination policies in the Best Buy employee handbook. The benefits provided to same sex partners are almost identical to the benefits provided to opposite sex spouses of Best Buy employees. There are LGBT employee resource groups accessible to Best Buy lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. There are even written policies and procedures addressing employees making sexual transitions while working at Best Buy.

With all of that positive and tangible support provided to LGBT Best Buy employees, can’t one little $100,000 anti-gay political contribution just be overlooked? It seems apparent that Best Buy’s LGBT support outweighs its support of LGBT opposition. So, can’t the boycotters just get over it and be happy with the positive support that they are getting from Best Buy?

It seems that they could. But here’s why they can’t.

One of my favorite comedians Alec Mapa, said it…

The buying power of the LGBT community was $759 billion in 2009
PLEASE don’t cave just because u want a scented candle. #BoycottTarget

What if the political candidate with the corporate philosophies that Best Buy and Target liked had been, by the way, an openly active member of the Ku Klux Klan? Would Best Buy and Target have put their money behind that candidate? And while that might seem to be a preposterous comparison, to the LGBT community it is just about the same. Prejudice is prejudice. Oppression is oppression. Human rights are human rights.

Best Buy has published a “Code of Business Ethics” document which talks at length about the principles and philosophies that (supposedly) guide the decisions of its leaders and employees. On page two of that document, it says this:

• “ETHICS AND ACTION – Ethics is about putting principles into action. Consistency between what we say we value and what our actions say we value is a matter of integrity.”

You’re right, Best Buy. The difference between saying that you support LGBT rights and taking an action to support a man who would be in a position to squash LGBT rights is a matter of integrity. And that is what consumers are upset about.

Page two of the Best Buy Code of Ethics document goes on to say:

“It is also about self-restraint:

• Not doing what you have the power to do. An act isn’t proper simply because it is permissible or you can get away with it.
• Not doing what you have the right to do. There is a big difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do.
• Not doing what you want to do. In the well-worn turn of phrase, an ethical person often chooses to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows.”

Right again. Sometimes an ethical organization chooses to do less than the law allows. In this case, doing less than the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling allows would have meant exercising financial restraint in not supporting a candidate who openly seeks to oppress a significant segment of your customer population, no matter how much his business politics will benefit the company’s bottom line.

So, perhaps Best Buy should gather together all those who are authorized to make political contributions in a boardroom and read page two together. Out loud. And then discuss.

It would be a good idea for Best Buy to either live up to their own page two or to change page two altogether. Or at least remove it from the internet in order to eliminate such transparent access to their own obvious conflicts of interest.

Just because Best Buy and every other member of the U.S. retail industry has been granted the right to fund political candidates, does that mean they should? Instead of figuring out how to operate in the complexities of the political arena, shouldn’t these two companies focus their resources on mastering the complexities of the retail industry?

It seems like Target and Best Buy are just waiting for the firestorm of consumer protests to burn itself out or allow the next big corporate drama to take over the headlines. Here’s why that’s probably not going to happen any time soon…

The HRC does a pretty masterful job at organizing and motivating LGBT activism. The LGBT community is encouraged to support the corporations that support the LGBT community. And that reciprocal back-scratching philosophy is backed up by some well-executed infrastructure.

A detailed and extensive list of brands, products, and companies is compiled each year, along with their gay-friendly workplace rankings. The LGBT community is encouraged to spend their consuming dollars on brands, products and companies that rank high, and to boycott brands, products and companies that rank low. There’s even an iPhone app that can assist consumers in making gay-friendly choices while they shop.

To assume that those who care about this LGBT issue today are going to stop caring about it tomorrow is to not know much about a subculture filled with people who feel like they have struggled for acceptance and respect every day of their lives. Anyone who is forced to accept things they cannot change on a daily basis, can be easily motivated to work really hard to change the things that can be changed. Consciously choosing which retail store to give your money to is definitely something that can be changed.

Major retail chains do participate in politics in many ways that we know about and in some ways that we probably don’t want to know about. It’s a part of American corporate business that’s not going to stop no matter how many Facebook fans are amassed against it. (The Boycott Target Facebook audience has grown by 16% in the past seven days, by the way.)

No matter which political candidate a corporation supports, they risk offending a large group of people with opposing views. So how will retail leaders know which political expenditures are not going to end up hurting more than they help?

The answer, I suspect, is somewhere on page two.