Coffee Society

Tempest on coffee cups in latteland:

A national Christian women's organization is accusing the Seattle-based coffee maker [Starbucks] of promoting a homosexual agenda because of a quote by author Armistead Maupin, whose "Tales of the City" chronicled San Francisco's homosexual community in the 1970s and 1980s.

Maupin's quote — one of several dozen in "The Way I See It" promotion — says his only regret about being gay is that he repressed it for so long.

....Concerned Women for America, which promotes itself as the antithesis of the National Organization for Women and boasts 8,700 supporters in Washington, says most of those quoted on the coffee cups are liberal.

Which would seem to be justified by the way The Seattle Times allows the issue to be framed:

...experts say that on controversial issues, no company can please all its customers all the time. Corporations, they say, need to pick their battles, staking out a position on issues they believe to be just.

"There are many religious-based social issues that are so hard for society to address right now — things like abortion and capital punishment — they're better left for another time," said Leo Hindery, author of "It Takes a CEO: Leading with Integrity."

"But there are a couple of places where it is clear to me that there should be no ambiguity of corporate responsibility — the environment and civil rights," Hindery said. "As a corporation, you cannot let the desire for unanimity override your obligation for fairness."

And, no the FLUBA Committee on Clueless Experts is not making this up.