Company at Center of 'Anti-Gay' Campaign Against Christian Groups Responds to Criticism
John Higgins, President of Charity Giveback Group (CGBG)-formerly Christian Values Network-talked to The Christian Post Tuesday in response to criticism that his company received recently from the gay community.
CGBG is an online marketer that offers to attract traffic to retailers’ websites, while offering customers a possibility to make a charitable donation to a Christian organization of their choice, which can be a charity, church, ministry or school. The company found itself in a storm of controversy after several gay activists launched a boycott against it and against the stores that cooperate with CGBG.
Gay activists were particularly outraged that shoppers using CGBG's service could make donations to Christian organizations like the Family Research Council or Focus on the Family, which stand against gay marriage and promote the traditional version of marriage as that between a man and a woman. The activists reached out directly to retailers, and managed to convince a number of them to end their cooperation with CGBG. A complete list of those retailers is available online.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Higgins suggested in a conversation with CP that the boycott is not fair. He stressed that the financial contributions made by shoppers are purely voluntary.
“We’re no different than GoodSearch, we’re no different than iGive, or OneCause, FreeCause and GiveBack,” he told CP.
The marketer has lost approximately 100 merchants as a result of the boycott, Higgins confirmed in an e-mail, in reference to CP’s previous article, in which a gay activist boasted he personally convinced 160 retailers to drop CGBG.
Higgins acknowledged that several big companies have ended their cooperation, but returned later. Among those are Target, Walmart and PetSmart, he said.
Meanwhile, several institutions that are on CGBG’s list of charities, including the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, have launched a counter-boycott, in which they urge shoppers to petition the stores that dropped CGBG and convince them to start using the service again.
The website, Christians / Consumers Against Retail Discrimination, is meant to allow the consumer to petition the retailer.
According to the website, CGBG gives an opportunity to make a donation to one of 170,000 cooperating charities and institutions.
A list of all the Christian institutions that shoppers can support via CGBG is available on the company’s website.
