Anti-LGBTQ Groups Benefit From AmazonSmile Program
Several anti-LGBTQ organizations are receiving donations through AmazonSmile, a charity platform by magnate Amazon.com, according to a new report by U.K.-based political activist group openDemocracy.
AmazonSmile launched in 2013, allowing consumers to select a nonprofit, which receives 0.5 percent of the proceeds from eligible purchases. According to NBC News, over a million nonprofits in the U.S. are registered with the program. While the vast corporation does not disclose how much individual groups bring in through AmazonSmile, Amazon has said the program has raised more than $215 million since its inception.
According to the AmazonSmile participation agreement, organizations that promote "intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence, money laundering, or other illegal activities" are ineligible. However, Amazon says it "cannot guarantee the good standing and/or conduct of any charitable organization." Rather, Amazon depends on classifications of organizations by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos contended, in a July Senate hearing, that the vetting process "an imperfect system."
While Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council, two designated "hate groups," had been removed from the AmazonSmile platform after complaints by human rights groups, over 40 organizations listed on the U.S. AmazonSmile platform still openly work against LGBTQ rights, according to openDemocracy, including The Indiana chapter of the American Family Association.
Based in Mississippi, that organization supported Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014, which deemed same-sex relations punishable by up to life in prison; they also claimed anti-bullying campaigns in U.S. schools are "a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools," according to The New York Times. The American Family Values Association also led boycotts against Home Depot in 2010, and Target in 2016, over support for Pride parades and allowing transgender people to use store bathrooms according to their gender identity.
The Family Leader, another organization registered with AmazonSmile, called homosexuality a "public health risk." Founder Bob Vander Plaats, who once mounted a failed bid for the governorship in Iowa, said in a 2011 interview, "if we're teaching the kids 'don't smoke' because that's a risky health style, the same can be true, too, with the homosexual lifestyle." Plaats claimed the SCOTUS decision on Obergefell v. Hodges for marriage equality opened the doors to polygamy and decriminalizing pedophilia, and that allowing transgender people to use bathrooms matching their gender identity would lead to the assault of 12-year-olds girls in restrooms by adult men.
The National Organization for Marriage, the American Center for Law and Justice, and Human Life International are all recipients in the AmazonSmile program, all of which have vociferously espoused anti-LGBTQ sentiment, with the latter in particular claiming that the gay rights movement poses "a direct threat to our God-given freedoms."
GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said, "for many years, anti-LGBTQ groups like Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage have used their platforms to dehumanize LGBTQ people and spread hatred and misinformation about LGBTQ families. While masquerading as 'charities,' these anti-LGBTQ organizations are shamefully taking advantage of a program meant to aid organizations that genuinely help vulnerable people."
Human Rights Campaign regularly awards a perfect score to Amazon in its Corporate Equality Index. Amazon also supported the Equality Act, federal legislation banning discrimination against LGBTQ people in housing, employment, education and more. As NBC New points out, Bezos and ex-wife MacKenzie Scott pledged $2.5 million in support of same-sex marriage in Washington state in 2012.
Seth Levi, chief strategy officer at Southern Poverty Law Center, urged Amazon "to ensure that none of its platforms — including retail, web services and entertainment — are used to support and/or promulgate hateful and dehumanizing content," according to openDemocracy.