Our friend Claire Hartford wrote the following letter to Office Depot. Having happily done business with Office Depot for many years, we at EPM wrote a similar letter, and are withdrawing our business unless they choose to stop promoting, and using for their own promotion, one of the worst role models in our country.
Here’s Claire’s letter:
Dear Office Depot,
I was very disappointed to see that your company has partnered with Lady Gaga and her foundation, Born This Way. Why? First of all, Lady Gaga is a remarkably poor role model for America's youth. Even a cursory check of her lifestyle, fashion choices and song lyrics demonstrate an outrageous coarseness and tastelessness. Why would Office Depot choose to partner with such a polarizing figure, a person who has regularly gone out of her way to offend the moral sensitivities of most Americans? [Who] in the Office Depot advertising department okayed that idea?
Secondly, I went to the “Stories of Bravery” on the foundation website, and discovered (no surprise) that most of the testimonies there involved a defense of homosexual practice. Where are the stories of young soldiers going into harm's way? Or the stories of young students resisting peer pressure in order to do well in school academics or sports? What about the young man or woman who holds a job while also working hard in their studies? What about the young person who chooses not to have sex until they are married or the young mother who stood against the pressures of obtaining an abortion when she discovered she was pregnant? What about the young person who takes his/her summer vacation to help others?
No, these kinds of stories aren’t included in the foundation website. Instead, they are nearly all about gay identity and gay social practice. The agenda of the foundation couldn't be clearer. Born This Way (and apparently Office Depot) interpret bravery in a very limited, very directive way.
Because Office Depot has made such an elaborate campaign to help promote and fund Lady Gaga's career and the Born This Way Foundation, I will be taking my business (which has been substantial over the years) elsewhere.
