The anti-gay and anti-transgender group the National Organization for Marriage has started a boycott of JP Morgan Chase bank for surveying their employees about their support with the LGBT community.
“Chase has repeatedly insisted that the survey was "voluntary and anonymous." But NOM has released a screen shot provided by a Chase employee establishing that employees had to "log in" to the Chase computer system using their unique employee ID number in order to complete the survey, allowing the megabank to learn which employees are loyal to the LGBT community… no, [the survey] was not voluntary or anonymous…
Brown said the Chase survey potentially subjects those employees who do not answer in the "politically approved way" to discrimination and sanctions: "As one employee put it, this could be a way to create a ‘fire these people first' list."
It's clear that Chase has lied to its employees and customers about the survey and its attempt to push the LGBT agenda. This is a major violation of trust, the central value in any banking relationship," [NOM President Brian] Brown said. "We are launching an international boycott and petition drive at www.VoidChase.com to give consumers a way to object to the bank's offensive actions, demanding that they issue an apology and pledge never again to engage in this conduct…
To kick off the boycott, Brown said that he would be moving his own home mortgage, presently held with Chase, to another company.”
In a Media Matters article entitled “No, JPMorgan Chase Doesn't Have An ‘LGBT Loyalty Test' For Employees,” Luke Brinker said:
“[The] ‘loyalty test' story is a complete fabrication. Neither [anti-LGBT extremist Austin] Ruse nor [NOM co-founder Robert] George (alarmists who spread stories about Chase's survey) has actually produced a copy of the survey they're reporting on. More importantly, there isn't a shred of evidence that Chase is using the internal survey for anything other than basic data collection. Ruse can't point to any examples of anti-LGBT Chase employees being punished, targeted, or even acknowledged in any way. It'd be equally as absurd for Ruse to assert that the survey was being used to punish employees "with children with disabilities." It's an entirely made-up horror story meant to promote the tired narrative that the LGBT movement seeks to persecute anti-LGBT conservatives.”
Furthering the argument, Jeremy Hooper mentions that JP Chase Morgan itself has said, "[The survey] allows employees to provide feedback on a broad range of issues, and managers use the results of this survey, in combination with other feedback, to continually improve the workplace and employee experience," and points out that NOM has no basis for their claim that the final survey results are not, in fact, kept anonymous.
NOM's boycott is a largely symbolic press stunt as it likely will not affect the bank which has 5,100 branches in 85 countries and over $2.515 trillion in holdings.
In 2012, NOM launched a boycott of Starbucks coffee after the company voiced support for a Washington state pro-marriage equality ballot measure. Their effort failed to gain much online support or to inflict significant damage to Starbuck's stock price.
