Jonathan Baker, director of the Corporate Fairness Project for NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, is claiming their “Dump Starbucks” campaign is partly responsible for a $1.4 billion drop in Starbucks’ stock market value.
“On March 21, 2012, the date of the Starbucks annual meeting where I queried them on their corporate support for same-sex marriage, their stock closed at a price of $53.81. This past Friday their stock closed at $51.97,” Baker writes at the NOM blog, totally ignoring the fact that for any stock market value numbers to matter, a company’s stock price must be compared to the overall market.
Baker amusingly “forgets” this fact, and also the fact that NOM’s Dump Starbucks campaign, after almost four months, has attracted only 45,578 people even though they have been heavily promoting it literally around the world. NOM even had the campaign translated into Arabic, along with three other languages spoken in countries that are generally opposed to homosexuality and same-sex marriage, many of which also support Sharia law and the killing of homosexuals for merely being homosexual, as The New Civil Rights Movement reported in April.
On May 30, The New Civil Rights Movement actually compared Starbucks’ stock performance to the overall market, and found that “Starbucks’ stock has performed better since NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, rolled out their Dump Starbucks campaign designed to harm the coffee giant.”
NOM rolled out the Dump Starbucks campaign on March 21, at the Starbucks shareholders’ meeting, in response to the coffee giant retailer’s announced support in Washington state of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. A current view via Google Finance as of this writing shows Starbucks stock +2.00% vs. the DOW -5.65% as of March 21 to today.
We should note, also, that Starbucks’ direct competitors are all down. Only Starbucks, per the Google chart, is up.
So, where is Starbucks today?
Baker, clearly not a retail or market analyst, ignorantly assumed no one would notice that the DOW in the past four days has dropped a significant 200+ points, and the NASDAQ has dropped almost 45 points.
So let’s really look at the numbers.
The DOW is down 3.29% since March 21. The NASDAQ, on which Starbucks is listed, has performed worse: down 4.05%. Starbucks (SBUX) is down less than half of both: 1.34%. So despite Dump Starbucks’ 45,578 people, Starbucks is performing much better than the market. Yes, Starbucks stock has dropped slightly, from $53.81 to last night’s closing of $52.39. A drop of $1.42 is hardly cause for NOM to celebrate.
Conceding that “our protest was only part of the equation,” Baker writes:
What the protest has done, and what you have helped us do as one of our supporters, is start to sway the conversation. There is no longer just one side of the marriage debate telling corporate leaders that “equality” requires that the corporation take the position that the nuclear family is no longer important. Or that “diversity” demands that companies tell those employees who believe that fathers and mothers are both vital to the upbringing of a child that they are ignorant bigots.
See the language Baker is using?
No one is saying “the nuclear family is no longer important.” Certainly not same-sex marriage supporters, who are merely looking to be included in the civil institution of marriage. Why would we attack the family when we’re working hard to create our own families?
Baker then closes with this:
Call or email your local Christian or Catholic radio station and tell their DJs and news staff about the DumpStarbucks.com effort.
Share with them what Starbucks has done and urge them to inform their audience about the DumpStarbucks.com pledge. (You might add a plug for the www.DumpGeneralMills.com pledge as well!)
Because apparently only Christians care about marriage…
Last month, The New Civil Rights Movement reported NOM was “attacking retailing giant Target, falsely claiming, ‘Marriage isn’t terribly pertinent to their business’.”
NOM, who has said that marriage is “the bedrock of civilization,†is going after Target, who sells millions of products for the home, children, and families, often at an attractive price. Target even does a booming wedding registry business and is listed as one of the top retailers who share in the $19 billion wedding registry market. Target is currently promoting a “Wear it with pride†tee shirt campaign, giving all proceeds to the Family Equality Council.
This latest salvo of NOM’s shows not only how desperate they are, but also, how bush-league, how amateur they are.