Nick Offerman To Mike Pence: #Usuck

Parks And Recreation star Nick Offerman is married to Megan Mullally of Will & Grace fame. Last year I saw them in an odd two-person Off Broadway play called Annapuma. Offerman was nearly nude for the first fifteen minutes.

INDIANA: Massive Gaming Convention Threatens To Leave The State

Via the Indianapolis Star:

The organizers of Gen Con, the city's largest convention in attendance and economic impact, are threatening to move the event elsewhere if Gov. Mike Pence signs controversial religious freedom legislation that could allow business owners to refuse services to same-sex couples.

"Legislation that could allow for refusal of service or discrimination against our attendees will have a direct negative impact on the state's economy, and will factor into our decision-making on hosting the convention in the state of Indiana in future years," said Adrian Swartout, owner and CEO of Gen Con LLC, in a letter sent to Pence just hours after lawmakers sent the measure to his desk.

Gen Con's website describes the convention as "the original, longest-running, best-attended gaming convention in the world!" The conference attracted 56,000 people last year to the Indiana Convention Center and has an annual economic impact of more than $50 million, Swartout said in the letter.

"Gen Con proudly welcomes a diverse attendee base, made up of different ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds," she wrote. "We are happy to provide an environment that welcomes all, and the wide-ranging diversity of our attendees has become a key element to the success and growth of our convention."

The Indianapolis tourism agency is opposed to the bill.

George Takei Threatens Indiana Boycott

George Takei writes on his Facebook page:

The Governor of Indiana has indicated that he will sign SB101—a law that allows businesses to discriminate against customers based on the proprietors’ religious beliefs. This bill is strikingly similar to one proposed—and vetoed due to public outcry—in Arizona. Such laws harken back to a time where our society was divided, and people of color were banned from white establishments. That is not our nation any longer, and those are not our values.

To the governor and to the legislators in Indiana who support this backward-looking and divisive bill, I say to you this: If it goes into effect, Indiana will be marked as a state where certain people are not welcome, and so we will not visit. We will not spend. And we will not attend events, including GenCon, the world’s largest gaming convention, held in Indianapolis each year. Many fans here are gamers, Governor Pence, and we will demand the convention move out of your state.

Fans, friends and especially you gamers, let Governor Pence know how you feel about this bill. Give him a call: 317-232-4567.

His post has already been shared 11,000 times. Takei has millions of followers on social media.

AFA Launches Boycott Of Target

"While other companies are choosing to remain neutral in the culture war, Target is going all out to support homosexual marriage. This is a company whose leaders make a mockery of marriage. They make a mockery of God's Word - and every Christian in this nation should let Target know it is out of step with the majority of Americans who support natural marriage. Are you going to give Target your money, knowing they'll use it to undermine your deeply held beliefs? TAKE ACTION: Target doesn't think you care enough to speak out. In essence, they are saying they don’t think you will take your business elsewhere. I think they underestimate the Christian community. Send your message to Target, urging them to withdraw their support for homosexual marriage and stop undermining long-held American values that marriage is only between one man and one woman." - Posted yesterday to the website of the American Family Association. (Via Good As You)

RELATED: NOM's month-old Target boycott has been the usual hilarious fail. Only 2850 people have bothered to sign NOM's petition. On the day the boycott launched, Target's stock price was $56.99. Yesterday the stock closed at $60.56 - meaning that Target's market cap has increased by $1.83 billion in the last month.

NOM: Chase Bank Doesn't Give A Shit About What Anti-Gay Hate Groups Think

Brian Brown would like you to know that a whopping 5000 actual human type people have signed NOM's wildly viral boycott campaign against JPMorgan Chase. And therefore it's fucking bewildering that a multi-trillion dollar corporation with operations in dozens of nations hasn't suspended international trading to return his foot-stompy calls.

It's been nearly a week since we announced our boycott and petition against JP Morgan Chase. Since then, over five thousand activists have signed up at www.VoidChase.com to demand answers and an apology from the bank for the invasive and inappropriate survey issued to employees that sought to discover whether they were in step with the bank's pro-LGBT agenda. But we still have not gotten any response from the bank about how this information was handled and what it could be used to accomplish. Nor has the bank's leadership owned up to the wrongness of their actions and issued a necessary apology to their employees and customers.

So I need you to take action today, if you haven't already done so, and join the VoidChase movement! Visit www.VoidChase.com right away and sign your name to this important cause. You may have read that yesterday President Obama signed an executive action ostensibly aimed at preventing workplace discrimination against LGBT persons, but which could in reality be used as a weapon to punish and harass individuals and groups who support marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In the context of such action by our government, it is more important than ever that we let corporate America know that thought-policing in the workplace and the enforcement of political agendas through discrimination against pro-family employees is unacceptable.

I like to imagine that the boards of Chase, Starbucks, and General Mills have shared a snickering group conference call. That's how my SNL skit would play.

Freedom From Religion Foundation: Boycott Hobby Lobby Over SCOTUS Suit

No More Mr. Nice Gay: Ender's Game

Clip recap: "In this edition of No More Mr. Nice Gay, Guy explains why he isn't going to see the film adaption of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Mr. Card, Guy knows you're homophobic, but he's not boycotting to kill profits; he's doing it for good, old self-respect."

Chicken Filets For Gays

Saying they "won't be bullied" by radical homosexual activists, anti-gay groups are passing around a website that claims to be collecting donations to send Chick-Fil-A sandwiches to the operators of Change.org, the progressive site that launched a petition to boycott the chain.

Okay, wait a minute. Halt the Inquisition. We call fowl! You mean Chick-fil-A, a company founded by a Christian—a company that has explicit Christian values—isn’t free to donate chicken sandwiches to organizations celebrating traditional marriage without getting hen-pecked by gay activists? C’mon. This is America. Pro-family companies and individuals should be able to express their religious views openly. Right? Yes, right! But our gay activist friends have stinky wet feathers and a fowl mood over anyone who disagrees with them, so we think it’s only right to respond to their petitions and boycotts with . . . chicken!

Let’s show them some love by burying them in Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches. When you donate, we’ll use your donation to buy and send a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich to Change.Org’s headquarters—your way of supporting Chick-fil-A, and telling gay activists to stop having a cow, and for goodness’ sakes stop attacking someone else’s religion. (And we WON’T include your name on anything, since gay activists have a habit of personally attacking individuals who fund their opposition. Nice tolerant bunch, huh?)

As always, the hypocritical Christianists fail to note the many, many boycotts they've launched against companies with employee LGBT groups, with gay marketing campaigns, and those that have made donations to gay causes. Gay boycott = radical homosexual intimidation. Christian boycott = taking their money elsewhere. If any chicken sandwiches actually make it to the folks at Change.org, we encourage them to promptly donate that food to gay kids made homeless by Christian Love™.

FLORIDA: Christian Group Calls For Nickelodeon Boycott Over Trans Character

The Florida Family Association is calling for an advertiser boycott of Nickelodeon's Teen Nick channel over a transgender character on its show, Degrassi: The Next Generation. The anti-gay group is falsely claiming to have already forced Kodak, the show's prime sponsor, to pull out.

The Florida Family Association (FFA) claimed another victory on Wednesday when David Caton announced that, after receiving e-mails from FFA members, Kodak pulled the plug on sponsoring “DeGrassi: The Next Generation” on Teen Nick. The FFA targeted DeGrassi due to, as Caton put it in an e-mail sent out on Oct. 27 to his supporters, the show “targets teens with gay propaganda and other immoral behavior.” Teen Nick boasted that Kodak was the sponsor of their show 'DeGrassi: The Next Generation' and aired dozens of their advertisements just before Kodak received thousands of e-mails regarding the program’s irresponsible content,” wrote Caton on Wednesday. “Kodak was the most frequent advertiser on DeGrassi just before Florida Family Association’s Oct. 27 e-mail alert was released. Additionally, Teen Nick labeled Kodak as a ‘sponsor’ of several episodes during that same time.

However Kodak says that their ad schedule on Teen Nick is merely on a "planned pause" and that they'll return to Degrassi next week. So the Florida Family Association jerk is a liar as well as a bigot.

HomoQuotable - Jimmy LaSalvia

"The decision by the leadership of the gay left to support the Arizona boycott over an issue totally unrelated to gay rights shows just how beholden they are to the union bosses. The Arizona boycott is being spear-headed by the Service Employees International Union, and the law at the center of the boycott has nothing even tangentially to do with the rights of gay and lesbian Americans lawfully in this country.

"The decision to participate in this boycott, over the objections of local groups like the Greater Phoenix Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, puts the interests of organized labor over those of the gay and lesbian Arizonans hurt by this protest. Whether it’s current boycotts, like the Arizona boycott or the boycott of the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego, or previous boycotts, like the boycott of Coor’s Brewing – Gay, Inc. is always willing to do the bidding of the big union bosses, regardless of its impact on gays and lesbians." - GOProud executive director Jimmy LaSalvia, via press release.

Both the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force have endorsed a boycott of Arizona.

SAN FRANCISCO: Gay Flash Mobbers Use Gaga To Protest For Workers Rights

Finally, a great flash mob. Clip description:

A flashmob infiltrates the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco and performs an adaptation of Lady Gaga's song "Bad Romance." The event was organized to draw attention to a boycott called by the workers of the hotel who are fighting to win a fair contract and affordable healthcare. Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer activists put the song and dance together as a creative way to tell the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ people from all over the country coming to San Francisco in June for Pride to stay out of the boycotted hotels.

The hotels on the boycott list can be found here.

Arizona: Made In NYC

Angry about Arizona's new law, some consumers have launched a boycott of Arizona Iced Tea. Slight problem: the stuff is made in the NYC area, which is also home to the company's headquarters.

Online, misguided tea fans vowed to switch to Lipton or Snapple. "Dear Arizona: If you don't change your immigration policy, I will have to stop drinking your enjoyable brand of iced tea," Twittered Jody Beth in Los Angeles. "It is the drink of fascists," wrote Travis Nichols in Chicago. The company did not return messages asking if they planned to set the public straight. Founded in Brooklyn in 1992, the firm was based in Queens before moving into a new $35 million headquarters in Nassau County last year.

Actual Arizona companies: U-Haul, Best Western, Cold Stone Creamery.

UPDATE: Arizona Iced Tea has posted a notice to their website.

Tweet Of The Day - Arturo Sarukhan

Rep. Steve King: Arizona Rep Has Already Ceded His District To Mexico

Moronic Rep. Steve King (R-IA) says that since Rep. Raul Grijalva is calling for a boycott of his own state, the U.S. has "already ceded" his district to Mexico. Bonus racist pandering points from Fox host Laura Ingraham in the below clip.

Well, it looks like the case is that, that he's trying to scare the businesses out of Arizona, or he's trying to get the businesses to change their position and press the legislature to reverse the law that was just signed by the governor the other day. I'm wondering if we look at the map of Congressman Grijalva's congressional district if we haven't already ceded that component of Arizona to Mexico judging by the voice that comes out of him, he's advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law, which is one of the central pillars of American exceptionalism.

California May Boycott Arizona

The speaker of the California Senate yesterday asked the Governator to "tear up" any contracts between the state and Arizona as calls for a boycott continue to swell.

In another swipe at Arizona and its strict new anti-immigration rules, California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg on Tuesday asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to "deliver an unequivocal message" of disgust by tearing up the state's contracts with Arizona businesses and government agencies. Arizona's new law, which allows police to demand identification from anyone reasonably believed to be an undocumented immigrant, has spawned a maelstrom of emotions since its approval last week — from quiet applause from those who support the crackdown to protests and boycott shouts, including San Francisco's move Tuesday to ban city workers from traveling to the state on official business. Steinberg, in a withering letter to the governor, called the new rules "unconscionable" and a recipe for "racial profiling." Noting energy agreements with Arizona as well as deals to send the state California's overflow prisoners, he urged Schwarzenegger to take action. "The state of California should not be using taxpayer dollars to support such a policy," the Sacramento Democrat wrote.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are considering boycotts of their own.

San Francisco Board Of Supervisors To Consider Arizona Boycott

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will hold a meeting tomorrow to consider "emergency legislation" cutting the city's ties with Arizona.

Supervisor David Campos this morning confirmed that he will tomorrow introduce emergency legislation calling for a San Francisco boycott of Arizona in response to that state's recently enacted, harsh immigration law. "I feel the city and county of San Francisco has to take a stand against what's happened in Arizona," said Campos. "The law they've enacted is really an affront to the basic principles of the constitution." Arizona's newly minted law makes it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant and brings heavy fines against organizations that hire illegal immigrants. Campos and others, however, claim it will discourage immigrants from reporting crimes to police and could lead to rampant racial profiling of anyone who resembles a Latino. As for what a boycott of Arizona would entail, however, Campos didn't have many details just yet.

Numerous Hispanic, immigrant rights, and labor groups have also issued calls to boycott Arizona. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says that he will direct city attorneys to sue the state and press for an injunction barring the law from going into effect.

Liberty Counsel's CPAC Boycott Fail

Remember how Matt Barber, Focus On The Family, and the Liberty Counsel stomped their feet and said they would boycott CPAC if those dirty GOProud queers were allowed to attend? So much for THAT.

CPAC ignored the threat, essentially calling the evangelicals' bluff. This gave the social conservatives a choice. They could pull out of CPAC, which holds an informal poll of Republican presidential contenders. The straw poll is widely seen as an indicator of how possible candidates are playing with the conservative base. Or, they could show up and hang out with people they think are an "affront to God." As it turned out, politics trumped God. On Thursday at Washington's Marriott Wardman hotel, representatives for both Liberty Counsel and GOProud were hosting booths in the same exhibit hall. The folks staffing the Liberty Counsel booth insisted their presence didn't mean they'd compromised their values. One young woman at the booth explained that Liberty Counsel's parent organization (Falwell's Liberty University School of Law) had yanked its financial support as a CPAC co-sponsor, as this would have forced the organization to join hands with a group that contravenes its mission. Apparently, paying the organizers in order to host an exhibit space alongside GOProud at the event didn't pose the same problem.

UK: Glenn Beck Loses 103 Sponsors

Think Progress reports that Glenn Beck's UK radio show is in serious trouble.

Today, Color of Change and StopBeck.com announced that the United Kingdom has forcefully rejected Fox News host Glenn Beck. In fact, the UK broadcast of his show “was forced to run without any advertisements” for five days in a row as of yesterday. Additionally, 103 companies have agreed to stop their ads from appearing on his program. Some of the latest defections include Allstate Insurance, Anheuser-Busch, Idaho Potato Commission, Marriott International, Volkswagen, and Western Union.

Five days in a row without a single commercial! Don't hold your breath for the same success here in the states.

Hundreds Rally At SD Manchester Hyatt

With the boycott of the San Diego Manchester Hyatt now in its second year, hundreds rallied outside the hotel yesterday to protest that the American Historical Society chose to cross picket lines and hold a convention there. Rex Wockner:

Close to 300 people staged a raucous demonstration at the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel in San Diego on Jan. 9 to protest the American Historical Association's decision to go ahead with its annual meeting there rather than honor the gay boycott of the hotel. The boycott was launched in mid-2008 after hotel owner Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to the campaign to put Proposition 8 on the ballot. The constitutional amendment passed in November 2008, repealing same-sex marriage in California.The AHA said its contracts with the Hyatt were in place long before anyone had heard of Prop 8 and that it would have cost the association around $800,000 to move the Jan. 7-10 convention. Instead, the AHA staged a free-to-the-public, 15-part miniconvention at the Hyatt "to explore historical perspectives on same-sex marriage."

More coverage and more photos on Wockner's site.

AFA Suspends Gap Boycott

Saying they are going on "good faith" that a coming ad from Gap properly acknowledges Christmas, the American Family Association is suspending their boycott of the company's three retail chains. But only until they see the commercial. Via press release:

According to Bill Chandler, vice-president of Gap corporate communications, Gap's Old Navy division will launch a new television commercial this weekend which "has a very strong Christmas theme." Chandler responded to AFA last Friday, after a poll showed 90% of AFA supporters wanted to continue the boycott as a result of Gap's initial "holiday" ad that mingled Christmas with the pagan "Winter Solstice" holiday. Gap says the new ad will include the popular Supermodelquins proudly cheering “Merry Christmas", and features Christmas trees, lights and ornaments as well. In good faith, AFA is suspending the Gap boycott until it has an opportunity to view the new commercial this weekend. As a result of your dedicated actions, we believe Gap is beginning to realize that Christmas is not just another “holiday” and will begin to advertise in a way that is respectful to Christians and Christmas shoppers.

The above "action alert" from the AFA closes with a pitch to purchase a box of "God's Gift: Merry Christmas" buttons from them.