Christian conservative Franklin Graham
says he's boycotting Wells Fargo not because it's a gay friendly bank
but because it advocates for gay rights.
Last week, Graham, the son of
evangelist Billy Graham and head of the Billy Graham Evangelist
Association, vowed in a Facebook post to shun certain businesses,
calling on his followers to “fight the tide of moral decay that is
being crammed down our throats by big business, the media and the gay
and lesbian community.”
Graham said that he was particularly
offended by a Wells Fargo ad that shows a lesbian couple adopting a
deaf child and later revealed that he had moved his accounts to “a
good bank.”
That bank, BB&T Bank, ranks high
(80%) on the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Corporate Equality Index
(CEI), a measure of a company's support for LGBT rights. BBT&T
is also the sponsor of this year's Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade and
the chief sponsor of the parade's Legacy Couples program, which
celebrates same-sex couples in “committed relationships of 10 years
or longer.”
The ironic twist led MSNBC's Rachel
Maddow to declare: “Franklin Graham threw a Facebook hissy fit and
moved his accounts because of a commercial that showed two women
adopting a deaf little girl. But it turns out his new bank is so
much gayer than his old bank. The universe has a way of making these
things work out, big guy.”
Graham responded in an op-ed published
in USA Today.
“[I]t may surprise some to learn that
I think every business should be gay-friendly,” Graham
wrote. “By that I mean businesses – like individuals –
should be friendly to gay customers and citizens. We should be
friendly to everyone, even if or when we disagree with them.”
“[I]n our view, Wells Fargo went
beyond being gay-friendly to being a public advocate … for a
lifestyle we, as a Christian organization, believe to be biblically
wrong.”
Graham went on to deny that his actions
were gay unfriendly: “[W]e can oppose a TV ad promoting a home with
an adopted child and lesbian parents while still loving those
represented in the ad.”