Starbucks and gays
Quick Take
Starbucks has a long history of supporting LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage. But a send on social media twists a 2013 statement from its CEO at the time to falsely claim he said don’t buy Starbucks coffee “if you support traditional marriage.”
Full Story
Starbucks has long supported marriage equality and “advancing inclusion and equity for all,” according to the firm website.
Starbucks has offered full health benefits to all employees, “including coverage for same-sex local partnerships,” since 1988.
But during an annual shareholders meeting in 2013, a shareholder said that Starbucks was losing customers because of the company’s support for gay marriage.
In response, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks at that time, said the company will maintain to embrace all forms of diversity. Schultz told the shareholder, “If you feel, respectfully, that you can fetch a higher repay than the 38% you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company.”
A few articles over the years either misquoted Schultz’s exchange with the shareholder or took his com
Starbucks Took Down Parade Flags and Fired Up the Union
“You know you are winning when Starbucks is taking down Pride decorations.” Over the past several days, I’ve seen hundreds of comments like this all over Twitter and Instagram, as rightwing bigots felt emboldened to declare victory following the news that Starbucks was no longer allowing Pride decorations in their cafes throughout June. This is happening as other companies like Objective and Budweiser meet mounting pressure to distance themselves from vulnerable queer and trans communities due to anti-gay and anti-trans political attacks across the country.
As a queer person who has worked at a Starbucks in Oklahoma City for the past five years, I helped organize a union at my store. In late May, we were told by our manager that the Celebration flag we had hung proudly in our cafe, along with other colorful decorations, would no longer be allowed. At first, I thought Starbucks was removing all Pride-related material. Then I realized the organization was still selling Starbucks branded Lgbtq+ fest t-shirts and cups. It was shocking to see that Starbucks would cave in to the transphobic and homophobic turmoil started by rightwing media,
“I recognize at the outset that there’s some irony to a non-coffee drinking Mormon, conservative, defending a Democrat candidate for president, and perhaps one of the most liberal companies in America.”
— Senator Mitt Romney to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, as the latter testified before the Senate in March 2023
“No that’s the bottom line, it’s all a big smokescreen. This movement has become so capitalist. It is a capitalist movement. I see this movement becoming a straight-gay movement, that only believes in that almighty dollar. Now what kind of logic is this?”
— Sylvie Rivera, interviewed at Pride in 2001
This weekend Starbucks workers went on strike in Cleveland, part of a week of 150+ stores protesting the removal of Pride flags from shops nationwide. Partners struck at the newly unionized Strongsville location and in Crocker Park. With the Summer weather, turnout at both stores was excellent. For the first time in a while, stores failed to uncover altogether, with management apparently not mustering enough scabs to form the attempt. Overworked baristas and their allies celebrated their victory, playing music, chanting into our many megaphones, fanning o
Starbucks just did it again.
On the heels of the coffee chain's racist treatment of two African-American customers, Starbucks is now embracing homophobia, transphobia and anti-Semitism.
Please sign the petition on this page and demand that Starbucks cease coddling homophobic, transphobic and anti-Semitic bigots.
As you realize, in response to a racist incident in one of its stores, Starbucks plans to shut down its stores on May 29th for mandatory anti-bias training. One of the groups assisting with that training was the guide civil rights group, ADL, which focusing on anti-Semitism, but has also been a longtime leader, going back decades, in the battle for LGBT rights, among others. The ADL, and America's Jewish society, were speaking out on behalf of LGBT rights back when a lot of progressive allies were still squeamish.
Starbucks has now kicked the ADL out of the anti-bias training, in response to complaints from acolytes of transphobic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic bigot Louis Farrakhan. Yes, to prove that it isn't a bigoted business, Starbucks just took a swipe at gays, gender nonconforming people, and Jews.
Starbucks took the move in response to a request from Farrakhan a