Maybe some corporations are getting the message: The American people don’t want them playing politics — particularly when it comes to children and sex.
The insurance giant State Farm — the company whose jingle has embedded “like a good neighbor” in the minds of generations of Americans — found out this week that pandering to progressives can blow up in a major way after word spread that it was supporting a program to distribute material about sexual identity to kids as young as kindergarten age.
There are some things “good neighbors” don’t do — and talking sex to other people’s kids is one of them.
In a sane world, that would go without saying. But in the United States of 2022, it took a State Farm insider to blow the whistle on the company’s program to recruit agents to “help diversify classroom, community center and library bookshelves with a collection of books to help bring clarity and understanding to the national conversation about ‘Being Transgender,’ ‘Inclusive’ and ‘Non-Binary,’” as a leaked email from a State Farm “corporate responsibility analyst” put it, according to Fox News.
The memo was addressed to agents in Florida, the report said.
“Being Transgender,” “Being Inclusive” and “Being Non-Binary” are the titles of three books in a bundle put out by a group called GenderCool apparently aimed at spreading the joys of gender dysmorphia to kids ages 5 and up.
And doing it in the nation’s classrooms, community centers and libraries.
The conservative group Consumers’ Research, unafraid of corporate Goliaths, drew attention to the State Farm-funded program with a short video released on Monday that reframed the company’s “like a good neighbor” motto in scathing terms.
“State Farm tells us they’re a good neighbor,” the narrator begins. “But would a good neighbor target 5-year-olds for conversations about sexual identity? That’s what State Farm is doing.”
The video is titled “Like a Creepy Neighbor.”
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That had to have State Farm squirming.
And another one explained it further:
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And yet another drove the message home:
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Language such as “Being Transgender” and “Being Non-Binary” is the kind of talk that makes liberals swoon. But, as it turns out, it’s not the kind State Farm was willing to defend publicly.
After the Consumers’ Research video appeared and generated news coverage, the company started backpedaling.
The stalwart Twitter account Libs of TikTok published a post containing a leaked company email Monday night.
BREAKING: @StateFarm sent out a mass email to their staff today stating “we will no longer support that program” after they were exposed for supporting a project to push LGBTQ books into schools.
A source tells me “the agents were really upset when we found out.” W pic.twitter.com/55P1QJ0oLa— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 23, 2022
The contents made it crystal clear that it was the media attention that drove the company’s decision.
“State Farm’s support of a philanthropic program, GenderCool, has been the subject of news and customer inquiries,” the memo stated. “This program that included books about gender identity was intended to promote inclusivity.
“Conversations about gender and identity should happen at home with parents. We don’t support required curriculum in schools on this topic. We support organizations providing resources for parents to have these conversations.
“We will no longer support that program.”
Something clearly changed the minds of State Farm honchos, who understood a PR nightmare when they saw one coming.
Of course, it was almost certainly no accident that the program was originally aimed at Florida — though, as National Review noted, the use of the words “national conversation” in the memo implied a broader application might be in the works.
The Sunshine State became ground zero for the latest national conflict over teaching sexual identity to children when it passed the Parental Rights in Education law, signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
And DeSantis’ willingness to take on the corporate giants at Walt Disney World sent a message to the rest of corporate America that caving to the bullies of the progressive left was not always the safest route to take.
It appears as though State Farm got the message loud and clear.
Are corporations starting to learn to stick to their business?
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Let’s hope others — such as the cowards at Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Ford and GM — start to figure it out, too. Virtue signaling might sound like a good idea, a cheap way to score points with the activist public, but if it goes too far it’s going to backfire.
With major corporations that have a duty to make a profit, it’s not about principle, it’s about politics.
And Americans don’t need them playing politics anymore. They never did.
