Americans may be disappointed to learn that the nation’s favorite online retail giant, Amazon.com, no longer permits charitable support for certain faith-based organizations through its AmazonSmile program.
On May 3, Michael Farris, president, CEO, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, sent a letter to Amazon expressing surprise and disappointment over the retailer’s quiet banishment of ADF from the AmazonSmile program. Farris’s letter highlighted concern over Amazon’s admitted reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center as a gatekeeper for its program.
For those who are not familiar, ADF is a faith-based organization and the world’s largest legal organization advocating for the freedom to peacefully speak, live, and work according to one’s convictions without fear of government punishment.
In recent years, ADF has become one of the nation’s most successful Supreme Court advocates, winning seven cases in the last seven years at the high court. Those victories include defending a state program that provides funding for kids to attend private schools and defending a church-run preschool against government discrimination.
Amazon, as a business, is entitled act upon its own corporate goals and guiding principles. But it’s worth asking why dozens of Planned Parenthood and American Civil Liberties Union affiliates — and the SPLC itself — are eligible to collect donations, while ADF is left out in the cold.
This debate is more than a disagreement over political clout. It touches on matters of corporate groupthink, customer service, and genuine diversity of thought. And so, the question stands: Will Amazon uncritically embrace the recommendations of an irresponsible and repeatedly discredited group like SPLC, or will it ensure that its corporate programs truly prioritize customer interests and allow for real diversity of thought?
First, it matters that the SPLC is hardly the neutral watchdog organization it pretends to be. Rather, it attacks nearly everyone who disagrees with its far-left views, including veterans, Muslims who oppose terrorism, and even nuns.
The group may have done good work many years ago, but it has degraded into a propaganda machine. SPLC has been discredited for decades by investigative journalists and charity watchdogs as a “direct mail scam” that has seen its leaders amass enormous fortunes.
Its famous use of the “hate group” map really hits home for me. On Aug. 15, 2012, I unexpectedly found myself in lockdown — one of many intended targets of an act of extreme hate inspired by that map. In an interview with the FBI, Floyd Lee Corkins later cited the SPLC’s hate map listing as his motivation for choosing the Family Research Council, my employer at the time, as the target for a mass shooting. According to court documents, Corkins intended to enter the building, kill as many of my colleagues as possible, and smear Chick-fil-A sandwiches on our faces.
It’s appalling and irresponsible for the SPLC to compare peaceful Christian organizations, which condemn violence and racism, with violent and racist groups. Doing so prompts people like Corkins to direct their own brand of violence toward Christian groups like ADF.
Amazon now has a choice. It can uncritically accept the SPLC’s labels, or it can establish a policy that does not ban legitimate, faith-based organizations. If, as it professes in its corporate social responsibility strategy, Amazon puts customers first, the corporation should choose to allow greater toleration and diversity among customer-selected Smile recipients.
However, should Amazon choose to rely on a discredited and irresponsible organization like the SPLC to determine who is eligible to participate in AmazonSmile, it should disclose that in their policy and to their customers.
Dissatisfied customers will then have the opportunity to take their Smiles—and their dollars—elsewhere.
Jessica Smith is senior news writer and editor for Alliance Defending Freedom. She was employed by the Family Research Council at the time of the Floyd Lee Corkins shooting in 2012.
