For years, Apple has been affiliated with a little online shopping portal called CVN.org, otherwise known as the Christian Value Network. The site raises money for various religious groups by taking a small slice of product purchases at over 600 participating companies, including Apple and iTunes.
Sounds innocuous, right? Except that several of those religious groups are described as “active hate groups” that regularly engage in “anti-gay, anti-women” activities. And after a petition that garnered 22,000 signatures, Apple has yanked their support from the CVN and pulled iTunes from the network.
Techland has some of the details on some of these groups:
A few of the groups are certainly controversial. For instance, the founder of Abiding Truth Ministries, Scott Lively, wrote a book titled “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party,” which attempts to link homosexuality with extreme militarism in the Nazi party, and the Family Research Council actively lobbies against LGBT rights and advocates a one-year waiting period before a married couple with children can legally divorce (excepting domestic abuse).
Apple’s about as friendly a place towards women and GLBT as you can find in the tech industry: heck, it is widely believed that Apple COO Tim Cook is gay. I’m not surprised that they pulled their support from the network once concerns about the type of groups they were supporting were raised. Good for them.
Apple’s not the only company to pull out of CVN, either: Microsoft dropped out two weeks ago, along with Macy’s, REI, Delta Airlines, BBC America and Wells Fargo.
Gee, you’d think CVN would get the message here, and dump groups that actively promote hate instead of the actual Christian values of love, tolerance and kindness that Christ actually promoted.
