Right-Wing Group Plans Nationwide Target Protest: 'Sin Is Not a Civil Right'

A new video protesting Target has a message for the LGBT community: “Calling evil good will never make it right.”

Anti-trans conservatives are vowing to take their Target protests to “another level” with a message for LGBT equality groups: “Sin is not a civil right.”

That’s the theme of a new video from Faith2Action, a religious right-wing group that bills itself as “pro-life, pro-family, and pro-active — to win the cultural war for life, liberty, and the family.” Founded by Janet Porter, the organization was classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016.

On its YouTube page, the organization has posted a one-minute music video in protest of the big-box chain’s decision to allow transgender people to use the bathroom that most closely corresponds with their gender identity in all of its locations.

In the segment, a man follows a young girl into the bathroom and corners her in a stall, a sequence that's nearly identical to the anti-LGBT ad used to oppose nondiscrimination protections in Houston last year. A woman's voice is heard singing over the footage: “No matter how loud it’s shouted, sin is not a civil right. Calling evil good will never make it right.”

To keep scenarios like these from happening, the video urges shoppers to cut up their Target credit cards and join them in a protest June 4. Called “Don’t Protest Our Daughters,” the demonstration is scheduled to last from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at stores across the country.

The timing of that protest is strategic: Target’s next shareholders' meeting will take place June 8, just four days after the event.

In a blog post for the conservative website BarbWire, Porter argued that it was “time to take action.” “You’ve probably signed the AFA Pledge to boycott Target, like more than a million others, but now it’s time to take it to another level,” she said. “It’s time to tell Target to stop ‘Targeting our Daughters’ — from the sidewalk outside their stores.”

Porter, who is also the president of Faith2Action, has previously urged conservative Christians to boycott target for its support of the LGBT community. After the company came out in favor of nationwide marriage equality in August 2014, she claimed that Target had “taken aim at natural marriage.”

In a broadcast for her daily radio show, Porter continued, “They are using your hard-earned shopping dollars to stand for counterfeit marriage.”

Porter has futher attracted attention for her extreme views on LGBT people in the past. Throughout her career, the Faith2Action founder has claimed that homosexuality is more dangerous to public health than smoking, promoted antigay "reparative therapy," equated homosexuality with pedophilia, and warned that Disney’s yearly “Gay Days” event would lead to “cross-dressing men … parading public displays of perversion.”

This also isn't the first video from Faith2Action targeting the LGBT community. In an earlier segment from the group, the right-wing organization compared coming out as gay to adultery. In a confusing metaphor, Faith2Action further likened being honest and open about one’s sexuality to alcoholism and cheating on one’s taxes.

But in taking aim at Target, yet again, Porter may be overestimating her level of support.

In her statement, Porter refers to the American Family Association petition threatening to boycott the popular retail chain. The right-wing organization (also categorized as a hate group by the SPLC) claims has garnered almost 1.3 million signatures. ThinkProgress, however, pointed out that total is likely inflated. On the AFA website, it’s easy to sign the petition multiple times from the same browser, as long as one registers a different email address each time.

Following the announcement on April 19 that Target would be “[standing] for inclusivity” by providing affirming bathroom access for trans staff and customers, the store has been widely protested by conservatives. They warn that these accommodations will allow sexual predators to enter women’s restrooms.

Customers, however, have no reason to flee Target, which has promised to roll out family bathrooms at all of its locations for those concerned about the policy.

In the more than 200 localities across the U.S. that allow trans people to use the restroom that corresponds most closely with their gender identity, there’s never been a single report of a trans person attacking someone else. In addition, there are no verified instances of a cisgender person posing as trans in order to gain access to the opposite-sex facilities.

Despite the protests, Target CEO Dan Cornell has stated that its trans bathroom policy will stand. “We took a stance,” he told CNBC’s Squawk Box May 12. “We’re going to continue to embrace our belief in diversity and inclusion, just how important that is to our company.”

Watch the video below.