Storm in an LGBT coffee cup

Some 50 Chinese gay and lesbian rights groups are launching a campaign to fight against an international boycott of coffee chain Starbucks called for by a US organization, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

The NOM is a faith-based organization calling for marriage to be solely between a man and a woman. The organization started a campaign called "Dump Starbucks" to protest the company's support of a bill that legalized same-sex marriage in Washington State, where Starbucks first started. Nike and Microsoft, both based in the Pacific Northwest, have also supported the bill.

"NOM announced they will expand their protest against Starbucks' decision to support same-sex marriage to Beijing and other regions in the country," said Hui Jin, (not her real name), who organized the campaign calling for Chinese to support and sign their proposal, titled "Support Starbucks, Anti-boycott."

"We couldn't sit and watch a group that has dedicated themselves to work against equal rights for homosexuals to import their campaigns here," she said.

Over 800 people have signed the group's online petition since Friday.

NOM wants a referendum to overturn the bill, which will take effect on June 7, and called for supporters to sign a pledge saying they supported the anti-Starbucks campaign. The pledge states that signatories are "deeply offended by the corporate position to support same-sex marriage" which is against "moral views of half of US customers and the majority of international customers."

NOM has 31,809 signatories to the Dump Starbucks campaign, while an anti-NOM campaign to "Thank Starbucks" from consumer rights website, Sumofus.org, has garnered 645,589 responses.

Brian Brown, NOM president, announced on April 10 Dump Starbucks will expand "into Mandarin, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, and Bahala [sic]," and online ads will run in areas including Beijing, Hong Kong and Yunnan Province.

The petition's English version states: "In many areas of the world where Starbucks does business, the concept of 'gay marriage' is unheard of and deeply offensive to cultural, moral and religious values."

Hui said that they would contact the company today to deliver their "endorsement" of the global company's decision.

"Hopefully, Starbucks China will come out in support of promoting same-sex marriage," she said.

Xu Bin, director of a Beijing-based lesbian group called "Common Language," has also signed the proposal on behalf of her group.

"We want to support [Starbucks] in the hope that one day, local companies could extend support to homosexual people," Xu said.

According a Seattle Times report on January 24, Kalen Holmes, Starbucks' executive vice president, said: "Starbucks is proud to join other leading Northwest employers in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples." Starbucks China could not be contacted yesterday.

An anonymous employee at Wanda Starbucks store, Chaoyang district, said he was unaware of their global office's support on the matter, but personally would like to "embrace diversity and serve people no differently."

Li Yinhe, one of the first scholars on homosexuality in China and leading sociologist, thinks residents should not hesitate to support Starbucks.

"It's very risky to tag 'pro-homosexual' on commercial branding for a company, so I highly doubt marketing is what this is about," said Li.

"And the NOM takes the majority of Chinese as being conservative and embracing their values for granted, which is and will be proved wrong, mainly because China doesn't have a religious history and the tradition to feel 'deeply offended' by the existence of homosexual values," said Li.

Yesterday, Hui said they will step up their campaign, while making it plain they do not want to encourage people to buy more coffee.

"Buying more coffee is not the right way to deliver our petition," said Hui.

Phone calls and e-mails to NOM went unanswered yesterday.