No pleasing the Fundies

Wal-Mart may be a far-right, conservative corporation, but as a publicly trading company, they still need to constantly demonstrate growth to their share-holders, thus Wal-Mart must expand into urban areas, and into demographics previously ignored.

Religious Groups Plan Wal-Mart Boycott Two religious groups are urging boycotts of Wal-Mart this holiday weekend in response to the retailer's ties to gay and lesbian groups.

The American Family Association reports on its Web site that “nearly 400,000 families” have agreed not to shop at Wal-Mart on the Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving. Also, Operation Save America intends to “proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ at more than 300 Wal-Mart stores” on Friday.

The groups are up in arms over Wal-Mart's decision earlier this year to join a national chamber of commerce for gay and lesbian businesses, as well as for its donations to other gay and lesbian groups.

The cold math is there are more non-fundamentalists than fundamentalists. Of course, Wal-Mart has a loooooong way to go before folks like myself will ever step foot in one of their stores.

especially because they don't celebrate national atheism day...

Wal-Mart has made one change that might appeal to Christian groups. It intends to make “Merry Christmas” a prominent theme in its marketing and in-store signs this year, as opposed to the “Happy Holidays” that some retailers have used in the past to the ire of Christian groups.

John Fleming, Wal-Mart's chief marketing officer, said in an interview on Monday that the retailer's “single greatest portion of customers celebrates Christmas, and it is important to them.” For example, the section in Wal-Mart stores including Christmas lights and other decorations is now labeled a Christmas shop rather than a holiday shop.

“This is really about listening to our customers and our associates,” Mr. Fleming said of the “Merry Christmas” theme. “As one of our associates pointed out last year, 'Why do we call it a holiday shop when it has Christmas trees in it? It's a Christmas tree. We should call it a Christmas tree.”

Wal-Mart, which operates nearly 4,000 stores in the U.S. and more than 2,700 abroad, logged more than $312 billion in revenue last year.

Tags: Business, /Christian_Taliban, /Wal-Mart