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AFA ActivismAction Alert - June 1, 2001JC Penney Still Refuses To Contact KingdomBuy.comTen companies sever ties after e-mail campaign by Yahoo! sex club members
Some of the nation's largest retailers have severed ties with KingdomBuy.com, an online shopping mall, after the retailers were targeted in an email campaign by advocates of online porn. The activists, who are members of numerous Yahoo! (a popular Internet portal) sex clubs, urged companies with an affiliation with KingdomBuy to drop the company. KingdomBuy was targeted because of its affiliation with AFA, whose actions recently caused Yahoo! to remove much of the pornography from its Internet servers. The email campaign portrayed KingdomBuy.com and AFA as "pro-censorship organizations" attempting to "strip people of their freedoms." Five days after the email campaign began, two of the nation's largest retailers, JC Penney and Nordstrom, decided to immediately cancel their association with KingdomBuy.com. Other companies, like Tabasco, Brookstone, FTD, Ritz Camera, New Era Cap, Novica, and Eziba followed suit. Avon also pulled their affiliation with KingdomBuy.com but has since restored the relationship. "Representatives of the retailers who ended relationships with us say they were not responding to the email campaign. However, we know the email campaign was conducted, and we know that nine retailers dropped us immediately following the campaign-the first retailers to end a relationship with us since we started the business last October," said Dave Donaldson, a member of the KingdomBuy.com board of directors. "While we don't believe these retailers knew they were being pressured by pornography advocates, the cause and effect is quite clear. We're disappointed by their actions, and we have asked them to reconsider," Donaldson said. Through its "faith-based giving program," KingdomBuy.com uses a percentage of its profits to support more than 9,000 churches, ministries, Christian schools and missionary organizations. ShaSha Richardson, Public Relations Director for Nordstrom, told AFA Journal that the email campaign had nothing to do with that company's decision to drop KingdomBuy. Richardson said a spot-check of Nordstrom's more than 5,000 affiliate partner websites discovered that KingdomBuy's website was religious in nature - a violation of company policy. "Our customers have so many diverse faiths... that, to honor that diversity, as a business we need to apply [our policy] consistently across the board," she said. Brian Fahling, Senior Trial Attorney for the AFA Center for Law & Policy, said Nordstrom's reasoning was legal, and even understandable, but still very disturbing. "More and more in our culture, the concept of diversity is being used to isolate Christianity," he said. "If Nordstrom truly believes in diversity, it should welcome all companies to affiliate with it. For this devotion to diversity to result in exclusion is bizarre." JC Penney canceled its relationship with KingdomBuy.com on May 18. However, Jeanine Connolly, public relations manager for JC Penney.com, said she knew nothing about the email campaign by sex club members. When told that May 18 was five days after the email campaign began, she insisted that the two were unrelated, saying JC Penney's decision was based on "sound business grounds." Gary Sutton, president of KingdomBuy, told AFA Journal that his online mall "made thousands of dollars a month for JC Penney since the partnership began." "Just what were those 'sound business grouds?'" he said. "We have contacted JC Penney repeatedly to try to find out why they dropped KingdomBuy.com, but they've never responded to us." Sutton said that he remained committed to helping ministries. "We were giving back a percentage of our income to ministries, but through these difficult circumstances I have made an even greater commitment," he said. "I have told the Lord that KingdomBuy.com will contribute 100% of its profits to ministries we support, which includes AFA." ACTION NEEDEDPlease contact JC Penney again and politely ask them to extend a simple professional courtesy to KingdomBuy.com President Gary Sutton by contacting him with an explanation about their cancellation.J.C. Penny Company, Inc. Allen Questrom, Chairman P.O. Box 10001 Dallas, TX 75301-8101 Phone: 972.431.1000 Please contact Nordstrom and urge them to prove their commitment to diversity by restoring their affiliate relationship with KingdomBuy.com. Nordstrom, Inc. Bruce A. Nordstrom, Chairman 1617 Sixth Avenue Seattle, WA 98101-1742 Phone: 206.628.2111 Please contact the remaining companies who have dropped KingdomBuy.com during the sex club campaign and urge them to restore the relationship. FTD Mike Soenen, President 3113 Woodcreek Drive Downers Grove, IL 60515 Phone: 800.736.3383 Ritz Camera Fred H. Lerner, President & CEO 2010 Main St. Ste. 400 Irvine, CA 92614 Phone: 877.690.0099 New Era Cap Company, Inc. Christopher Koch, President P.O. Box 208 Derby, NY 14047-0208 Phone: 800.989.0445 Brookstone Michael Anthony, President 17 Riverside Street Nashua, NH 03062 Phone: 603.880.9500 Tabasco McIlhenny Company Avery Island, LA 70513 Phone: 800.634.9599 Novica Roberto Milk, President 11835 W. Olympic Blvd. Ste. 750E Los Angeles, CA 90064 Phone: 310.479.6685 Eziba James Bretinger 87 Marshall Street, Bldg. 1 North Adams, MA 01247 Phone: 888.404.5108 AFA encourages you to show your support for KingdomBuy.com and the many companies who have not buckled to the sex club scheme by shoppping at the AFA online mall.
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