A national Christian women's organization is accusing Starbucks of promoting a homosexual agenda because it printed on coffee cups a quote by author Armistead Maupin, whose "Tales of the City" chronicled San Francisco's homosexual community in the 1970s and 1980s.

Maupin's quote — one of several dozen in "The Way I See It" promotion — says his only regret about being gay is that he repressed it for so long. The quote reads: "I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short."

According to the Seattle Times, Starbucks says it was hoping to inspire old-fashioned coffee-house conversations when it introduced a campaign this year featuring the words of notable Americans on its coffee cups.

But Concerned Women for America, which promotes itself as the antithesis of the National Organization for Women and boasts 8,700 supporters in Washington, says most of those quoted on the coffee cups are liberal.

"The group believes corporations have a responsibility to reflect the diversity of their customers by taking a balanced approach — or staying out of divisive social issues altogether," says the Times.

And while the group is not calling for a boycott, its position nonetheless raises questions about what role — if any — corporations should take on potentially sensitive matters, especially at a time when the nation is divided, largely along religious lines, on issues such as gay rights.

"Corporations have deeper pockets and therefore more influence than individuals do," said Maureen Richardson, state director of Concerned Women for America of Washington. "I think it's wiser for them to stay out of these issues so that they don't offend conservatives and people of faith."

"The Way I See It" campaign does not set out to take a political stand but rather to encourage discourse, Starbucks spokeswoman Audrey Lincoff said.

Starbucks has no plans to pull the Maupin quote.

Source: The Seattle Times