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After taking the gratuitous swipe at Starbucks in the previous post, I thought it was fair to bring you this bit of news from the Starbucks shareholders’ meeting at which the CEO put a wingnut in his place. Story from KPLU in Seattle, with bonus audio on the page linked here.

The CEO of Starbucks defended his support of same-sex marriage at the company’s annual meeting in Seattle. Starbucks came out in favor last year of Washington’s referendum legalizing same-sex marriage. Opponents of that measure vowed to make Starbucks pay, and the National Organization for Marriage launched a boycott of Starbucks.

At the company’s annual meeting Wednesday, shareholder Tom Strobhar suggested that the boycott had indeed bled the company of value.

“In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earrings — shall we say politely — were a bit disappointing,” he said.

CEO Howard Schultz shot back that the decision to back gay marriage was not about the bottom line, but about respecting diversity. He said the company had delivered a healthy return last year, boycott or no.

“If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38 percent you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much,” he said, to loud applause from the audience.

The comment came shortly after shareholders voted down a proposal to prevent the company from making political contributions. Board members said they wanted the flexibility to promote the company’s policy agenda.

I decided to do some simple searching of shareholder Tom Strobhar, who makes it appear that his only concern is the “disappointing” returns on 39 percent on Starbucks stock. That fact alone should make anyone suspicious of a guy who makes it seem as if his only concern is his stock. Turns out Strobhar is something of a professional wingnut who presents himself as a financial planner, and his financial concerns related to LGBT issues go back to at least 2005. This from an wingnut news site called Agape Press:

A pro-family activist says he’s not surprised that a motion to remove sexual orientation from Ford Motor Company’s equal employment policy did not pass. However, conservatives still say it was a victory.

Flanked by four high-level corporate officers, Ford Motor’s chairman William Ford, Jr., opened today’s annual shareholders meeting by saying the company is profitable in most of the world. “Worldwide our total vehicle sales have gone up for the last two years,” he said. “The exception to our worldwide success is our North American automotive operations.”

The two-hour meeting gave shareholders the chance to review a list of ten proposals, among them a resolution from a retired Illinois doctor that asked Ford to remove reference to sexual orientation from its written non-discrimination policy. William Ford recommended a vote against the proposal. “Ford believes that our workplace should be free from discrimination,” the company leader stated. “Such an environment is conducive to productive workers.”

Ford shareholder Tom Strobhar, who is a pro-family activist from Ohio, publicly read the proposed resolution and spoke in its favor.

Shareholders voted down the anti-gay proposal. Strobhar also turned up during a 2005 controversy over the support of Planned Parenthood by the March of Dimes:

[The March of Dimes spokeperson] denied the organization funds any “abortion activities, abortion research or gives directive advice on abortions” and said the group “vigilantly monitors all use of its funds.”

However much the charity may monitor its funds, though, March of Dimes or any other donor cannot control how the organization it supports moves other money around, said Tom Strobhar, a financial expert in Dayton, Ohio, who heads up Pro-Vita Advisors. “Obviously, money is fungible. If you give for this specific service, that frees up money for use elsewhere.”

And then there is this from 2008 and the Anglican Mainstream, an arch-conservative group:

One of the largest natural gas and electric utilities in the nation has donated $250,000 to defeat California’s marriage-protection amendment.

Prop. 8, which goes to voters in November, would restore the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

Tom Strobhar, president of the corporate-research firm Pro Vita Advisors, called PG&E’s intervention outrageous.

“It’s one of the most egregious abuses of shareholders and ratepayers that I’d ever seen,” he told Family News in Focus.

Jeez, one minute he’s a pro-family activist, the next he’s a financial adviser. It’s clear that what he actually represents is a class of wingnuts who are obsessed with the sex lives of strangers and will dedicate their lives to spreading their misinformation and bigotry.

Yet the Christian right often presents Strobhar as a disinterested third party financial expert.

It’s been proven time again that the right wing regularly uses lies and deception such as this because they cannot win on their message alone, which most thinking people reject outright.

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