Amid renewed calls by LGBT activists for a boycott of Chick-fil-A over the CEO’s support of traditional marriage, a new report reveals that widely distributed Pride Month swag is created in countries where homosexuality has been criminalized.
According to The New York Times, some retailers that sell Pride Month swag, “including H&M, the European fast fashion retailer Primark, Target and Levi Strauss, manufacture their merchandise in countries where it is either illegal to be gay or where persecution is commonplace.”
Companies like Primark, a major retail outlet in Europe, manufactures many of its Pride Month items in countries like China, Turkey and Myanmar, none of which are exactly San Francisco for homosexuals. The revelation has angered LGBT activists in Europe. Steve Taylor, a board member of the European Pride Organizers Association, called it “unacceptable.”
“One of the Primark T-shirts printed in Myanmar says ‘Love Is Love,'” he said. “Well, no, it’s not if you live in Myanmar.”
In Myanmar, homosexuals face imprisonment.
The company responded to the outrage by promising to donate 20% of its Pride product sales to the LGBT charity, Stonewall.
“A statement from an H&M representative said the items in its pride collection were made in China, Turkey, Bangladesh and India,” the Times reports. “In India and Bangladesh, homosexuality is criminalized. Homosexuality isn’t a crime in Turkey, but gay rights activists there say that the L.G.B.T. community is not safe and that there are no laws to protect them. “
The H&M rep deflected this by saying they have partnered with these countries for years.
“We have made products in these countries for a long time,” an H&M representative said, “and this collection is made by suppliers we have worked with for many years.”
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Human Rights Office, said the controversy is more complex than it looks.
“When we do these partnerships with companies, we do due diligence to make sure we’re not partnering with companies that are complicit with human rights violations,” she said, adding that the partnership could be an inroad for LGBT activists in the countries.
Many of the companies, such as Target and Levi Strauss, essentially try to excuse themselves by donating to organizations that promote homosexual rights.
Of course, hypocrisy among leftist activists has been commonplace in recent years, especially when it comes to with whom they will and will not do business. Oftentimes, as in the case of Apple CEO Tim Cook, they threaten to boycott Christians for believing that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman while making millions of dollars by selling in the Islamic world.