Nov 17, 2006  |  By: ZACK HUDSON  | COMMENTS     

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: the Rev. Philip “Flip” Benham, founder of Operation Save America, says he knows something about who you are, and more importantly, who you aren’t.

“The homosexual community isn’t going to shop at Wal-Mart. That’s not where they shop,” said Benham, whose organization tasks itself with combating the agendas of Muslims, abortion rights groups, and gay men and lesbians.

Working with conservative groups Americans for Truth and the American Family Association, Benham is planning a nationwide boycott and demonstration against Wal-Mart during the Thanksgiving weekend shopping free-for-all.

The move is a right-of-center retaliation against the retail giant for its partnership with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which chamber officials say could add gay-owned businesses to the vast Wal-Mart supply chain. 

But to Benham, when Wal-Mart paid $25,000 to join the NGLCC in August, the largest retailer in the world bowed down to “extortion from the radical homosexual movement.”

“It’s happened over and over again with corporations throughout this country. Every single corporation that you can imagine, the homosexual community has come in and said, ‘If you don’t do what we want you to do and give us a little cash, then we’re going to label you homophobic and not gay friendly,’” Benham said, also citing IBM, Delta and Coca-Cola as alleged corporate blackmail victims.

“Our responsibility is to get this information out, and what better time than the busiest shopping day of the year?” Benham said, referring to Operation Save America’s demonstrations as a “gospel information explosion.”

BY WORKing with the NGLCC and other gay groups, Wal-Mart is giving a “show of support to help homosexuals legalize same-sex marriage,” according to the Americans for Truth website.  The site claims that Wal-Mart is forwarding 5 percent of the value of online sales from walmart.com to the Washington, D.C. Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender People.

David Tovar, director of communications for Wal-Mart, disputed that claim. He noted that the gay center receives only a percentage of sales from people who click on walmart.com from a link on the gay center’s website — not all online sales.

“The program that they’re talking about is basically our affiliate program. And it’s designed to drive web traffic to our site. It’s a very common online marketing practice.

“We have more than 43,000 organizations that participate in the affiliate program. Affiliates ask to be included in the program and receive a small percentage of the sales based on the customers they refer,” he said.

To date, Tovar said, the D.C. center
had received $4.17 in compensation for walmart.com link referrals.

Wal-Mart takes no stance on the issue of legalizing gay marriage, and reaches out to “multiple groups” as a business matter, and has a “commitment” to diversity, according to Tovar.

WAL-MART EARNED a score of 65 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2006 Corporate Equality Index, the highest score the retailer has ever reached on the national gay political group’s ratings. Up from a 57 in 2005, the higher score was partially credited to the NGLCC partnership.

On the day after Thanksgiving and beyond, business will proceed as usual at Wal-Mart, despite any boycotts, Tovar said.