Wal-Mart partnership gets groups fired up
Gay chamber of commerce link creates backlash

By MARILYN GEEWAX
Cox News Service

WASHINGTON - Wal-Mart Stores is moving to attract gay shoppers as it
expands its presence in urban centers.

By entering into a partnership with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber
of Commerce this week, the company "is making a very sincere effort to
reach out to people who are a significant part of our customer base,"
Wal-Mart spokesman Bob McAdam said Wednesday.

But Wal-Mart did not issue a news release about the alliance, leaving
the chamber to announce it. And as news trickles out, a backlash is
taking shape among some conservatives.

"I don't think this is something that will sell on Main Street America,
where most Wal-Mart stores are located," said Tony Perkins, president of
the Family Research Council, a conservative public policy group in
Washington. "I don't think cheap prices on goods from China will be
enough to stop a rollback in their customer base if they choose to go
down this aisle."

By partnering with a gay business group, Wal-Mart is "validating the
idea that homosexual activists have the right to shake down corporations
out of fear of being called bigots," said Robert Knight, director of the
Culture and Family Institute at Concerned Women for America.

Interest in urban areas
In April, the retailer announced a strategy to increase its presence in
urban areas. Over the next two years, it plans to build more than 50
stores in neighborhoods with high crime or unemployment rates, on sites
that are environmentally contaminated, or in vacant buildings or malls
in need of revitalization.

McAdam said the specific purpose of the partnership is to help Wal-Mart
attract and hire a diverse array of suppliers, including gays and lesbians.

Although it obtains much of its merchandise from overseas suppliers, the
world's largest retailer also uses many local firms to provide services,
such as landscaping, architectural designing and painting, he said.

Justin Nelson, co-founder and president of the four-year-old gay
business coalition, said he was certain that objections from
conservatives would not cause Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville,
Ark., to back away from his organization.

Wal-Mart initiated the partnership, he said, and "it's a rock-solid
relationship."

In recent months, as his group and Wal-Mart have discussed their
possible relationship, "it was brought up that religious zealots would
make these hateful comments," he said. Wal-Mart executives persuaded the
chamber they would remain resolute, he said.

Nelson said that while Wal-Mart may start taking flak from the right, he
expects it from the left. Many liberal groups say the company fails to
provide its 1.3 million U.S. workers with adequate wages and benefits.

Jeremy Bishop, program director of Pride at Work, a constituency group
within the AFL-CIO labor confederation, said Wal-Mart should not expect
the support of gay shoppers when it does not offer domestic partnership
benefits for its gay workers.