As the number of people pledging to boycott Target over the retailer’s transgender restroom use policy surpassed 1.2 million, African-American leaders with Southern Baptist ties rebuffed Target CEO Brian Cornell’s suggestion that the push for transgender rights is parallel to the American civil rights movement.
Cornell appeared on CNBC on May 11, the same day the American Family Association (AFA) delivered to Target’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis the signatures of 1 million people who have pledged to boycott Target stores. Cornell said his company is “constantly listening” to customer feedback, but he was unwavering in his support of an April 19 announcement from the retailer stating, “We welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”
Cornell seemed to imply a parallel between the quest for African-American civil rights in the mid-20th century and the quest for open restroom access by transgendered people today.
“We’ve had a long history of embracing diversity and inclusion,” Cornell said in response to a question about the boycott. “One of our team members sent me a note reminding me that if we went back to the 1960s, our company was one of the very first to use African-American models in their advertising. And back then it wasn’t well received. But … we know we made the right decision.”
‘Illogical’ and ‘racist’
Dwight McKissic, pastor of the predominantly African-American Cornerstone Baptist Church, Arlington, Texas, said Cornell’s comparison between African-American civil rights and transgender restroom access is “illogical” and “racist.”
In 2012, McKissic, along with then-Maryland pastor Eric Redmond, submitted a resolution to the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Resolutions Committee which led to the convention’s adoption of a resolution “on same-sex ‘marriage’ and civil rights rhetoric.” The resolution called it “regrettable that homosexual rights activists and those who are promoting the recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ have misappropriated the rhetoric of the civil rights movement.”
Similarly, racial identity, McKissic said, “is not a matter of choice or feeling” while identifying outwardly with a gender different than one’s birth gender is “a matter of choice” — even if the underlying feelings of dissatisfaction with one’s gender are involuntary.
“The transgender person is telling God that He (God) made a mistake,” McKissic said. “The African-American is telling God no such thing.”
Morris Johnson, African-American pastor of Integrity Church, Hueytown, agreed and said there is “no relation at all” between transgender restroom issues and civil rights.
“Being black isn’t a choice,” Johnson said. “God made us all one people. Civil rights was about accepting different colors. … When it comes to gender we’re talking about someone trying to be different than what God made them to be.”
Johnson said he thinks the boycott is a good thing.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Target’s sales have seen the largest drop in two years, despite Cornell’s insistence that the boycott is not playing a major role in the decline.
Johnson also thinks it’s “a slap in the face” to compare transgender restroom issues to civil rights.
“Don’t try to use the civil rights movement to push your agenda,” Johnson said of Target. “Going back and using a freedom issue that was for all people to push an issue that is about one person wanting what they want, when they want it, is not right.”
(Baptist Press, TAB)
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