A boycott against General Mills over
its support of gay marriage does not appear to be hurting the
company's bottom line.
In June, the Minnesota-based food giant
became the target of a boycott after it announced its opposition to
Minnesota's proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
As of Thursday, more than 24,000 people at the National Organization
for Marriage's (NOM) “DUMP General Mills” boycott site
(DumpGeneralMills.com) have pledged to “dump” General Mills
products.
In announcing the boycott, NOM
President Brian Brown suggested the company would pay financially for
its decision.
“This will go down as one of the
dumbest corporate PR stunts of all time,” Brown stated.
General Mills CEO Ken Powell told the
Pioneer Press that he had not seen any sales impact from the
boycott.
Quarterly profits released on Wednesday
showed increased sales (5%) and profits (3%). Shares of the company
are also up 5 percent since mid-June.
A
counter petition thanking the company for its support and
organized by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) attracted nearly 80,000
signers.
“You hear a lot of bluster from
groups like the National Organization for Marriage,” HRC's
Michael Cole-Schwartz said. “But at the end of the day, the
majority of Americans are supportive of marriage equality, and no
companies have ever paid the price that groups like NOM threaten to
exact on them.”
(Related: Starbucks'
backing of gay marriage led to billions in losses, FRC claims.)