NOM Launches Global Anti-Gay Campaign Against Starbucks

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is launching an international campaign to promote a boycott of the mega-coffeehouse chain Starbucks after the company announced its support for marriage equality.

Last month, the Christian organization, which is bent on banning same-sex marriage in the U.S., announced a national campaign, called "Dump Starbucks," that asked supporters to boycott the coffee company. The effort epically failed as it only received 30,000 signatures on its petition. But the "Thank Starbucks" campaign for supporting gay marriage has almost 650,000 signatures, Gay Star News points out.

Nevertheless, NOM is still making efforts to ensure that no one buys Starbucks products or supports marriage equality. On Tuesday the organization announced that it was taking its campaign global and would expand to countries, including Turkey, Spain, Indonesia and more.

"In our first week, we gained 25,000 pledge signers in the U.S. alone; today we go international, expanding DumpStarbucks.com campaigns into Mandarin, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, and Bahala (one of the chief languages of Indonesia)," NOM President Brian Brown said in a statement. "DumpStarbucks.com online ads will also start running in Egypt, Beijing, Hong Kong, the Yunnan region of China, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait."

"What happens in Seattle won't to stay in Seattle," Brown continued. "By making gay marriage core to his brand, Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz is telling millions of customers and partners who support traditional marriage in the Middle East, China, South America and North America that they aren't truly part of the Starbucks community."

Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz defended the company's stance on gay marriage after NOM first announced its attack on the company. Schultz said, "in our view, through the lens of humanity, and being the kind of company that embraces diversity."

The Human Rights Campaign's president, Joe Solmonese, said that NOM's actions are "typical bullying tactics," the Associated Press reported.

"The National Organization for Marriage is in this for the long haul," Jonathan Baker, head of NOM's corporate fairness project said in a statement of the group's most recent campaign. "Here's our goal: If Howard Schultz and his insular Seattle liberals hear from enough of us, management will move to a more genuinely inclusive attitude toward its customers' and partners' diverse views on marriage. People should be able to drink or serve a great cup of coffee without betraying their own core values on marriage."

In January Starbucks, which is based in Seattle, Wash., (along with several other large companies including Microsoft) came out to support a law that would legalize same-sex marriage.

"Starbucks is proud to join other leading Northwest employers in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples," Starbucks' statement said. "Starbucks strives to create a company culture that puts our partners first, and our company has a lengthy history of leading and supporting policies that promote equality and inclusion."

Washington eventually passed the law and became one of the few states in the country that recognizes gay marriage.

NOM plans to bring their anti-gay campaign to a number of countries that already do not support same-sex relationships, such as Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Kuwait and others. Several bloggers have complained that NOM is trying to manipulate the public in these countries by pandering to a rabid anti-gay sensibility.

Watch a video of Schultz responding to same-sex marriage questions at a shareholding meeting below: