Tractor supply anti gay
'Mission and values': Tractor Supply Co. abandons LGBT, progressive causes amid backlash
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter
Tractor Supply Co. is abandoning its welcome of LGBT and progressive causes in the wake of consumer backlash.
The major retailer announced in a Thursday remark that moving forward, it will "ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business." The chain of more than 2,200 stores employing 50,000 workers indicated that its actions stem from a want to "live up to our Mission and Values every day and symbolize the values of the communities and customers we serve."
"We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them," the statement asserted. "We have taken this feedback to heart."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Upload. Be the first to know.
The firm listed its steps to assuage its customers' concerns, stressing its intent to "no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign," referring to an LGBT advocacy entity that gives businesses ratings based on their stances toward LGBT customers and employees.
The company
Anti-LGBTQ Activist Causes Tempest in Tractor Supply Teapot
A Tennessee anti-LGBTQ activist and filmmaker, Robby Starbuck, is claiming credit for the June 27 announcement from Tennessee-based Tractor Supply Business that it is ceasing its endeavors to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“This is the first Fortune 300 business in our lifetimes to go backwards on ESG (Environmental Social and Governance), DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and all these woke causes and donations, in record speed mind you,” Starbuck told his The Robby Starbuck Show audience on YouTube.
“It’s been three weeks of a barrage of news that me and my team have set out to exhibit the world what Tractor Supply has become.… Here is one of my favorite parts: They’re pulling out of the Human Rights Campaign’s CEI (Corporate Equality Index) scores.
“This woke farce called the Human Rights Campaign has nothing to undertake with human rights. It has everything to do with injecting wokeness and the LGBTQ agenda into corporate America. Rejecting this is a massive win.”
Indeed, while Tractor Supply earned a 95/100 score on HRC’s 2023 CEI, which serves as a leading measure of LGBTQ corporate actions, t
By Amy Price Azano and Clint Whitten
This article first appeared in The Daily Yonder, a non-profit news organization covering rural America.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In late June, the Tractor Supply Corporation announced that it was eliminating the corporation’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals; ending its practice of providing data to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group; and stopping the sponsorship of gay pride festivals and voting campaigns. The changes came after an anti-LGBTQ+ media producer launched a campaign to boycott the “rural lifestyle” retailer over its corporate policies, saying they did not show the values of the business’ customer base.
Dear Tractor Supply Company,
In your recent statement, explaining how you’ve taken customer feedback to heart, you remind us of all the excellent you’ve done for “Life Out Here.” In your 85 years, you’ve supported veteran causes and responded to emergencies, invested millions into state fairs, animal shelters, rodeos, and farmers markets. And most germane to our sense of rural, you’ve invested in our FFAs, 4-H clubs, and educational organizations. And yet, some customers contain expressed disappointment. With su
Tractor Supply’s DEI reversal to appease right-wing critics could fracture its surprisingly diverse ‘exurban’ customer base
Last month, Starbuck slammed Tractor Supply’s LGBTQ-inclusive stance and DEI hiring initiatives on X. He called on customers to boycott the large retailer of farming supplies and pressure its corporate leadership over the efforts. In an unsigned squeeze release on Thursday, Tractor Supply said: “We have heard from customers that we have saddened them.” Starbuck called Tractor Supply’s reversal a “massive victory” and “the single biggest boycott defeat of our lifetime.”
Yet in appeasing conservative critics, Tractor Supply risks shrinking the large, diverse customer base that helped it grow into a Fortune 300 company and ostracizing the “exburban” shoppers it’s depending on to jump-start stalling sales.
Rural roots, ‘exurban’ present
Tractor Supply repeatedly touted its roots in rural America in explaining why it was curtailing DEI and ESG tries. Yet rural America is not where its business is likely to grow in the future. Indeed, Tractor Supply has extended served the “exurban customer”—one who lives not in deeply rural, often politically conservati