Apple’s pulled its iTunes application from the website of a Christian group accused of being anti-gay and anti-women.
The Christian Values Network (CVN) – which now also calls itself the Charity Give Back Group – links consumers with retailers and allows them to donate a percentage of their purchases to charity.
But activist Ben Crowther won 22,000 signatures for a petition calling on Apple to pull out of the scheme because of CVN’s alleged funding of hate group organizations.
“From the beginning, I knew that once this issue was brought to Apple’s attention, they would not want to be a part of CVN because it funds anti-gay hate groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council,” says Crowther.
“Apple is a fair-minded business. I’m glad this petition helped make Apple aware of this issue, and I am thrilled that they removed iTunes from CVN.”
It’s not the first company to drop CVN – Macy’s, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Delta Airlines and the BBC America Shop have all removed their online stores from its site.
All were concerned about several so-called ‘family values’ groups funded by CVN. For example, the Focus on the Family website describes being gay as ‘a particularly evil lie of Satan’, and says sex outside marriage is ‘a monstrosity’.
And CVN spokesperson Mike Huckabee – former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate – has equated being gay with bestiality, necrophilia, and pedophilia.
But CVN’s not taking Crowther’s actions lying down [Well, no. – Ed.]
Campaigner Anthony Sells has started his own petition, claiming that ‘a majority of Americans recognize that homosexuality is wrong’ (really?), and that saying so isn’t hate speech.
Posted online 12 days ago, his petition currently has one signature. His own.
