May 14, 2014
LaBarbera Wants You to Dump Oprah's 'Lesbian Tea'
Bobby McGuire READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Watch out Oprah, Porno Pete is coming for you!
A lesbian-inclusive ad campaign run by Starbucks, a week prior to Mother's Day, has Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) president Peter LaBarbera going after the coffee giant with one of his "dreaded" email campaigns.
In a "Take Action" memo to his followers, LaBarbera writes:
For Mother's Day Starbucks released the commercial below, voiced by Oprah Winfrey and hawking a new "Oprah Chai" tea. The ad celebrates all sorts of moms-including the "two moms are better than one mom"-shown with the affectionate lesbian "moms" at right and the "M's" in "MOM" in what I suppose is an alphabetic homoerotic embrace.
Messages like this no long shock a post-Christian America shaped in part by decadent corporations pandering to the highly organized LGBT lobby. Starbucks already has sold its corporate soul (is that an oxymoron?) to the homosexual agenda. Its executives made that clear in 2012 when they defiantly rebuffed a boycott threat by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM)�and affirmed that support for homosexual "marriage" is a "core" Starbucks value.
The absurdity of LaBarbera's campaign is compounded by the fact that his campaign launched the day after Mother's Day, when the holiday-centric ad campaign was already finished.
The ad campaign at the center of LaBarbera's latest non-controversy is part of the launch of Starbuck's new Teavana Oprah Chai Tea, which according to the coffee giant, was personally developed by media maven Oprah Winfrey.
In addition to the barista prepared Oprah Chai Tea Latte's, Starbucks is also selling Oprah Chai Gift Sets, the proceeds from which will benefit youth education through the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation.
LaBarbera's latest rant isn't the first time that Starbucks has drawn ire from anti-gay activists. In 2012, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) started the "Dump Starbucks" campaign in reaction to the corporation's support of marriage equality. A year later, TheTeaParty.net also urged its followers to swear off shopping at the Seattle based coffee shops by signing NOM's "Dump Starbucks" online petition. Two years later, as of this writing, there are a mere 68,204 signatures on the petition. The "Dump Starbucks" Facebook page hasn't seen an update in eleven months.
There is little fear that any boycott or letter writing campaign by LaBarbera will have any effect on Starbucks' corporate culture that promotes inclusion. The day NOM announced its boycott in 2012, Starbucks shares were trading at $53 per share. Two years and three anemic boycotts later, the stock trades at $71 per share.
LaBarbera's crusade against Starbucks isn't the first time he's gone after a corporate food industry giant. In the past he's protested McDonalds and Chilli's restaurants for their alleged promotion of a "gay agenda." As of this writing, both businesses appear to be doing just fine without him as a customer.