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AFA JournalINTERNETEnterprise Rent-A-Car, J. Crew spurn online Christian businessAFA Journal, August 2001 EditionA growing number of well-known companies have ceased doing business with KingdomBuy.com, a Christian online shopping mall, but only two – Enterprise Rent-A-Car and J. Crew, a popular clothing company – have done so after citing reasons that border on Christian bigotry. Some of the nation’s largest retailers – like JC Penney, Nordstrom, CVS, Tabasco, and Brookstone – have severed ties with KingdomBuy, following an e-mail campaign started by advocates of online porn. (See AFA Journal, 6/01, 7/01.) Both Enterprise and J. Crew demanded that KingdomBuy.com remove its Internet link to the car-rental and clothing companies. Members of numerous Yahoo! sex clubs began urging companies with an affiliation with KingdomBuy.com to drop the Christian company because of its affiliation with AFA, after AFA asked the U.S. Attorney General’s office to investigate the dissemination of potentially illegal pornography via Yahoo! (See related story below.) 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, including AFA. In an E-mail to KingdomBuy in June, Enterprise spokesman Travis Wools said, “Your site promotes negative and exclusionary ideas and beliefs toward particular group(s). Enterprise Rent-A-Car does not wish to associate itself with your site or organization.” Wools told WorldNetDaily that the E-mail was intended for another organization and had been sent to KingdomBuy President Gary Sutton by mistake. Sutton, however, disputes that claim, saying that during a phone conversation, Wools indicated that a customer had complained about KingdomBuy’s affiliation with AbidingTruth.com, a group that opposes the normalization of homosexuality. Wools accused AbidingTruth.com of being an “anti-gay” website, Sutton said. J. Crew’s E-mail message was even more blunt. Isabel Stewart of the J. Crew Affiliate Program said in her letter: “I am writing to inform you that we are terminating your affiliate relationship with J. Crew. It has come to our attention that KingdomBuy.com contributes commissions to Abidingtruth.com, an anti-gay hate group. J. Crew does not want to be associated with any hate group, regardless of their religious affiliation. I hope that KingdomBuy will carefully consider every organization it contributes money to. Hate groups have no place in a true Christian organization.” Meanwhile Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, is continuing its partnership with KingdomBuy, after the E-mail campaign scored an initial win and the company backed away. Both Avon and FTD also dropped KingdomBuy at first, and then came back. Sutton said he believes the decision for Walmart.com to return to KingdomBuy despite the Internet-based protest was made at a high level. “I was speaking to the… secretary to the president of Walmart.com, so I have to think [the decision] went to a high level,” Sutton says. “Honestly, I think what happened was somebody took a look at the situation finally and said, ‘Hey, Wal-Mart is really about families.’” Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Inc. Travis Wools, Interactive Promotions 600 Corporate Park Dr. St. Louis, MO 63105 Phone: (314) 512-3522 Email: twools@erac.com J. Crew Group, Inc. 770 Broadway 12th Floor New York, NY 10003 Email: affiliate@jcrew.com |
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