Thursday, July 10, 2008

Choose Your Boycotts Wisely

The American Family Association is boycotting McDonald's because the company gave $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. (There are probably much better reasons to boycott McDonald's, but whatever.)

Meanwhile, several other people—including many Christians, albeit none with a voice as loud as the AFA's—are boycotting major chocolate producers (Hershey, Nestle, and Cadbury most notably), protesting the tens of thousands of child slaves working on chocolate plantations in Cote D'Ivoire, from which these companies purchase much of their cocoa.

While the complete success of either boycott is unlikely, if the AFA's boycott is successful, McDonald's will no longer give a tiny fraction of a percent of its profits to gay-friendly organizations. If the other boycott is successful, thousands of slave-owners will go out of business. I'm just saying.

An aside: I wonder if The United Methodist Church could use its considerable presence in Cote D'Ivoire to do something about slavery on cocoa plantations.

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