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Starbucks, the ubiquitous behemoth of a coffee chain, was one of several prominent Washington-area companies (including Microsoft, Nike, and Amazon) who in early 2012 supported a state measure to legalize same-sex marriage, stating that: That support led the company to becoming the target of Dump Starbucks boycotts instituted by anti-gay marriage groups such as the National Organization for Marriage. At a Starbucks shareholders meeting in March 2013, shareholder Tom Strobhar (founder of The Corporate Morality Action Center, an organization which also opposes same-sex marriage) challenged Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz over the company's financial performance, which Strobhar suggested had been harmed by Starbucks' corporate support of same-sex marriage and the subsequent boycotts, saying: In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings — shall we say politely — were a bit disappointing. Schultz responded (and drew two rounds of applause from attendees) by asserting that Starbucks stock had performed well over the past year, affirming the company's support of same-sex marriage, and stating that not all corporate decisions were based purely on economics: Howard Schultz did not, however, say anything that could reasonably be construed as If you support traditional marriage, we don't want your business or you can't buy shares in [this] company, as online chatter would later have it: Schultz told a disaffected stockholder that if he thought the company's social policies were hurting its financial performance and he could get a better return for his money elsewhere, he was free to sell his Starbucks stock and invest in a different company. He did not say that supporters of traditional marriage were neither allowed nor desired as stockholders and customers of Starbucks. A video of Schultz's response can be viewed here.
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