Wells Fargo dumped
over gay 'agenda'
Focus on Family cites
contributions made by bank
By DAVID MILSTEAD,
seattlepi.com on the Web, December 6, 2005
Focus on the Family is looking for a
new bank, saying it's dumping Wells Fargo for its "pro-homosexual agenda."
The Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Christian group told its followers about the
move Thursday. Focus on the Family said that a "pivotal reason" the San
Francisco-based bank is getting the ax is that its logo was used in a
fund-raising campaign for a "fight against the 'anti-gay industry' -- a group
that pro-gay organizations have stated includes Focus on the Family."
Wells Fargo had agreed to match contributions to a media-campaign fund for GLAAD,
the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. But its logo got attached
to a fund-raising Internet advertising campaign that raised Focus on the
Family's ire.
Chris Hammond, a vice president of business development for Wells Fargo in the
San Francisco Bay Area, said the bank did not have advance knowledge of the
advertisement and did not approve of it.
Top GLAAD executives could not be reached for comment.
"We simply made a grant to one of many non-profits Wells Fargo supports in the
San Francisco Bay Area," Hammond said. He said he'd "personally had a
conversation" with Focus on the Family in order to smooth the situation and told
the group that Wells Fargo contributes to multiple charities "including
non-profit agencies Focus on the Family believes in."
The Christian group was not mollified and broadened its criticism. Focus
on the Family said the parking lot of a Wells Fargo branch in San Francisco "has
been home to the infamous 'Leather Alley' event at the city's Gay Pride
Festival."
Focus on the Family cites Wells Fargo's Web site as saying the bank has donated
more than $14 million to "pro-gay organizations during the past twenty years."
One of the "pro-homosexual advocacy groups" that Wells Fargo supports is the
Human Rights Campaign, Focus on the Family said.
The bank says "we direct our giving to areas that we believe are important to
the future of our nation's vitality and success: community development,
education and human services."
James Dobson, Focus on the Family's chairman, told group followers that Wells
Fargo was part of a larger trend in which "gay and lesbian activist groups have
picked off all the big companies in the United States."
Focus CEO Jim Daly said 49 of the Top 50 Fortune 500 companies "have adopted
pro-gay policies. Looking at the entire list, 85 percent of the Top 500
companies have done so."
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