Target’s stock price has fallen 5.8 percent over the last two weeks, 2.5 percent on Friday alone. Many are pointing to an outpouring of opposition to the store’s announcement that men would be allowed access to women’s restrooms and changing rooms.
The American Family Association now has more than 1.1 million names on a petition vowing to boycott the retailer. Millions more have watched and shared a video from Defend My Privacy that encourages people to #CuttheCard, getting rid of their Target REDcard credit account.
“Clearly, Target’s new policy poses a danger to wives and daughters,” said Tim Wildmon with AFA. “We think many customers will agree. And we think the average Target customer is willing to pledge to boycott Target stores until it makes protecting women and children a priority.”
A Target spokesperson said this week they are standing by the controversial policy: “Our belief in and commitment to inclusivity has not changed.”
According to the Family Policy Institute of Washington, one of Family Policy Alliance’s nearly 40 state-based policy groups, the recent figures from the New York Stock Exchange mean a loss for Target of over $2.5 billion.
“Recent polls have shown that American’s feelings towards open-bathroom policies have hardened significantly in the month of April,” FPI’s said in a blog post, “with support for the open-bathroom concept falling by more than 20 percentage points.” That’s according to numbers from Reuters.
Sandy Rios, director of Government Affairs for AFA, told Breitbart radio host Stephen K. Bannon that this effort by gay activists won’t stop with Target.
“I would say on the positive side, we’ve had other corporations come to us privately and say they’re watching,” she said. “They were considering changing their policies, but they’re watching this boycott and they’re saying, you know, maybe not. So a lot hinges on it and this is something simple that people can do. We are in dialogue with other companies, other corporations encouraging them not to do this. And of course if they do, we’ll have to apply the same thing that we applied to Target.
TAKE ACTION
Tell Target that #iexpectmore. Sign our petition to Target CEO Brian Cornell telling him to protect the privacy and safety of women and children.