Starbucks cup promotes homosexuality?

Officials at Baylor University told the Starbucks store on its Waco, Texas, campus to remove a cup said to promote homosexuality.

The offending cup, part of a series with quotes from various American thinkers called “The Way I See It,” features the words of homosexual novelist Armistead Maupin.

It reads:

“My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. 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.”

Baylor University, the world’s largest Baptist school, refused to comment on the issue, said KCEN-TV in central Texas. Employees at the campus Starbucks said none of their customers had complained about the cup, but they removed it.

Cup part of Starbucks’ ‘The Way I See It’ campaign (courtesy: Seattle Times)

The cup also has drawn the attention of a national Christian women’s organization, which accuses the Seattle-based coffee maker of promoting a homosexual agenda.

Concerned Women for America, which says most of the quotes are liberal, 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, the Seattle Times reported.

“Corporations have deeper pockets and therefore more influence than individuals do,” said Maureen Richardson, 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.”

Starbucks spokeswoman Audrey Lincoff told the Times the campaign is only to encourage discourse, not to take a political stand.

“If you think back to the history of the old coffee houses, before the Internet, these were places to converse,” she said. “That’s part of what the coffee culture has been for a century or more.”

The artists include actor Quincy Jones, New Age author and alternative-medicine doctor Deepak Chopra, radio host and film critic Michael Medved, rap artist Chuck D, Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan and National Review editor Jonah Goldberg.