The man who is leading the charge against Starbucks’ support of same-sex marriage equality now has added Google and Amazon to his list. Pastor Steven Andrew, who heads the anti-gay group USA Christian Ministries, initially began his boycott of Starbucks after approximately 100 businesses large and small joined Washington United for Marriage’s Business Coalition in support of same-sex marriage equality. That list includes Starbucks, Google, and Amazon, but also other big corporate names like Microsoft, Nike, Alcoa, and Real Networks.
As many have pondered, why did Pastor Andrew pick on Starbucks? The simple answer is because they’re easy. People are willing to give up a cup of coffee at Starbucks and drive to a local coffee house or a Dunkin Donuts, and feel like they’ve made a statement. It costs them nothing (actually, they save a few pennies) and they can feel like they’ve contributed to a cause.
But why didn’t Pastor Andrew demand Christians boycott Google and Amazon? That’s harder to get people to do. And it shows his Starbucks boycott isn’t working. Also, he lost. Washington has signed marriage equality into law.
Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch reports Pastor Andrew says these companies are “working against Jesus and leading people to sin and to possibly go to hell,” and notes the Pastor “previously claimed that ‘Starbucks hates God‘ over the company’s backing of gay rights.” He quotes the Christian Post:
Andrew is currently involved in a boycott against Starbucks after the coffee company began supporting a gay marriage bill proposed in Washington State. He recently added a few others to the list as well, including Nike, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, asking Christians to no longer provide business to those corporations, which he claimed promoted homosexual sin.
For Andrew, his nonviolent protests did have a “biblical warrant.” “Boycotting anti-God companies is one way a Christian lives out the First Commandment,” the author of Making a Strong Christian Nation, told The Christian Post. “If you love Jesus, you won’t give your money to those working against Jesus, our Savior.”
He believed that if the stores in Sodom and Gomorrah that openly mocked God were boycotted, they could have possibly been saved. “God calls Christians and churches to not share in the sins of others. To love God is to flee sexual immorality. If we help the wicked, then God’s Word says God judges us (2 Chronicles 19:2). God calls Christians to 100 percent love Him and to 100 percent oppose sin.”
God also called the United States to have the fear of God as a nation, but complacency with sin did not indicate fear of God, Andrew asserted.
“Ungodly politicians, Starbucks, Nike, Amazon and others are doing the devil’s work … trying to ‘change’ our Christian laws into non-Christian laws … Every Christian and church should boycott companies making light of Jesus Christ. It is unwise for a Christian to give their money to those working against Jesus and leading people to sin and to possibly go to hell.”
You’ll remember possible FEC investigation candidate Bob Vander Plaats recorded a boycott Starbucks video and made false statements attributing them to Starbucks a few weeks ago. His video got pulled from YouTube faster than you can say “we’ll sue you for slander.”
Alas, God apparently doesn’t use the same lawyers.