Walmart Goes Woke

Walmart goes woke, joining the list of companies supporting a woke agenda and eliciting calls for consumer boycotts in response.

By Eileen Griffin

Despite the recent controversy Target ignited by promoting LGBTQ+ merchandise for children, Walmart is going down the woke road, The Epoch Times reports.

Like many retailers, as part of Pride Month, Walmart is offering clothing with pro-gay messaging and products, such as breast-binders, for transgender children.

Walmart says the product line is consistent with their program for inclusivity. The company financially supports organizations such as PFLAG, an advocacy group for LGBTQ+ families.

Conservatives who disagree with the agenda of the Left are calling for boycotts of such companies as PetSmart, which is offering gay and transgender accessories for dogs and cats—as are other stores for pet owners.

ESG Investors Push

LGBTQ+ promotions are part of the broader environment, social, and governance (ESG) movement that says business decisions should be based on social factors, rather than shareholder returns.

“ESG principles make companies look beyond making market demand and profits, and focus on taking actions related to issues like climate change, racism, and sexual identity, among others,” Naveen Athrappully wrote in The Epoch Times. “It is adopted by firms mainly to appease large investors like BlackRock that use these metrics to evaluate whether to invest or not.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom has created an index that assigns a viewpoint diversity score to companies based on their support for free speech and freedom of religion,.

Of the 75 companies ADF surveyed this year, just two scored as much as 25 percent out of 100 percent in their respect for speech and religion.

Jeremy Tedesco, ADF senior counsel and senior vice president for corporate engagement, said companies should be concerned about the way speech and religious freedoms are being limited.

“Threats to freedom don’t just come from the government, but from major corporations like financial institutions and big tech companies that have concentrated power over essential services and communication channels,” Tedesco said in an ADF statement. “Too often, these corporations de-bank or de-platform Americans, citing policies that give them unbounded discretion to censor people for their views.”

War on Religion?

What has been called a culture war, may actually be developing into a war on religion, according to The Federalist.

“What we’re in now is better described as a religious war—one that’s been launched by corporate America against all of us, and therefore demands we all choose sides,” wrote John Daniel Davidson, for the website.

Davidson says this is a religious war, or a spiritual struggle between good and evil.

“This is about transing kids,” Davidson writes. “Everyone knows it, but no one wants to say so out loud. Corporations are the tip of the spear, pushing this stuff out and then letting the media turn around and accuse the right of being violent bigots for objecting.”