Target’s Potty Policy is Parlous

My wife has always been a big fan of Target stores. She will drive the extra distance to shop there over other stores that are closer to our home.  Whenever we travel, finding the nearest Target is a must.

She’s not political. She votes, but that’s about it.

Me? Well, a quick scan of this blog will quickly answer that question.

With the recent decision by Target to make a political statement dressed in a social issue and to adopt what I consider a wrong-headed and potentially dangerous policy regarding the use of its public restrooms, we will no longer be shopping there. This is very disappointing to my wife, but I’ve asked her to stand with me on this decision in the name of common sense and safety.  She agrees.

We don’t take this stand because we think poorly of “those people” or wish anyone in the transgender community discomfort or harm in any way.

In fact, this stand, in my mind, isn’t about an inclusive policy for transgendered people at all. It’s about a shabbily and hastily conceived decision that openly invites perverts, pedophiles, and sexual predators to use and take advantage of it for their own deviant purposes.  I challenge any thoughtful, rational, logical human being to convince me Target has not just put out the welcome mat to degenerates nationwide.

A person who has gone through the very difficult mental, emotional, and physical process of changing his or her gender is a completely different situation and frankly, I have no problem with that person using the bathroom designated for the gender they have psychologically and physically adapted to.

Could some guy dress up like a woman and walk into a restroom for purposes other than using the loo?  Sure, but that’s not what we’re talking about here and that guy would/should be arrested as soon as he’s discovered.  At least I like to believe he would have been cuffed and perp walked in the not so distant past.

What we’re talking about here, and what I have a huge problem with, is a man who is clearly a man but on any given day may decide he’s feeling more womanly than manly.  Now, with Target’s permission, can walk into the ladies’ room with my wife.  Target’s policy, as I understand it, would allow the very scenario I just described.

In fact, just this past Friday, April 29, 2016, a gentleman named Andy Park uploaded a video to his YouTube account of himself asking a Target store manager in St. Petersburg, FL if he could use the women’s bathroom.  Park was not dressed as a woman and made no attempt to identify as one. He simply asked if he could use the women’s bathroom. The manager confirmed to Park that he could indeed use the women’s bathroom if he wanted to, and told him if any of the women had a problem with that he would “speak to them” about it. (SOURCE: Redstate.com)

Target then responded to the story:

This is not going to end well for Target.

I wish businesses like Target would just do business and leave the politics at home.  This whole fiasco reeks of a show of executive coolness by Target bigwigs. It screams “Look at how hip we are!” to corporate peers, while quietly admitting, “We don’t care what the majority of people think, we’re smarter than they are” to customers.

The vast majority of Americans just want a place to shop where they can buy the things they need and feel safe doing so.  Whether that’s in the aisles, at the checkout stand, or in the restroom.

Target has decided the feelings of 0.3% of the population carry more weight than the other 99.7%

So be it. I will take my business elsewhere.

Are You a Builder or a Wrecker in this Election Season?

Years ago, when the internet was beginning to blossom for businesses around the world, I traveled the world teaching people how to take their businesses to the web.

One of my colleagues had a poem he liked to quote at the end of his presentation and it has stuck with me since.

It’s words are cause for self-examination.  A personal inventory of our character to help determine the kind of people we really are.

As I watch the candidates, their campaigns, their staff, and zealous followers in this presidential race of 2016, the words to this poem become even more compelling and acute.

I watched them tearing a building down, 
A gang of men in a busy town.

With a ho-heave-ho and lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.

I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
As the men you’d hire if you had to build?”

He gave me a laugh and said, “No indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.

I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”

And I tho’t to myself as I went my way,
Which of these two roles have I tried to play?

Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?

Am I shaping my deeds by a well-made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?

Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down?

~ Charles Benvegar

What are you? What is your preferred candidate?

Which category do your words, actions, and interactions on social media or in person place you in?

I know I have some work to do.