Tony Gosgnach
The Interim

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has expanded the definition of “immediate family” in its ethics policy to include same-sex partners. However, a company spokesman declined to say whether the change would affect employee benefits or whether it signalled that Wal-Mart was taking a position on same-sex “marriage” and civil unions.  

In the wake of 130,000 e-mails sent to the U.S. Justice Department, Adelphia Communications Corp. has backed off a plan to become the only leading cable TV operator in the U.S. to offer triple-X-rated programming – the most explicit category of hardcore pornography – supplied by Playboy Enterprises Inc. A company spokesman said, “Adelphia will remove it from all its systems.”

In Canada, Rogers Cable backed off a plan to offer a free, weekend-long preview of three “adult-oriented” channels and doesn’t expect offer similar viewings in the future. The backtracking followed objections raised by lobby groups that feared children could wind up watching the material.

Several corporations are involved in fuelling the worldwide, $56 billion-per-year pornography market. A 2002 report by Concerned Women for America cited General Motors and AT&T as helping bring “the respectability-starved porn industry to Wall Street.” Hotel chains such as Marriott and Hilton, meanwhile, were reported to be making more money from pornography offerings in their hotel rooms than from snack and drink sales.

The United Way in Moncton, N.B. is giving a $5,000 grant to a program that helps gay youths identify safe places to go for help or support, by cards placed in the windows of supportive businesses.

The company’s chief executive says BCE Inc. is pleased with the “improved profitability” of its Bell Globemedia subsidiary – which it identifies as a non-core holding – and will only divest itself of that media business if the right opportunity arises. Bell Globemedia owns CTV Inc and the Globe and Mail newspaper – no friends to Canada’s pro-life and pro-family movements.

Washington, D.C.-based Life Decisions International says its ongoing boycott of corporations that fund Planned Parenthood has cost the pro-abortion organization about $35 million over the past decade. However, current boycott targets include Adobe Systems, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Prudential and Walt Disney Co.

Despite being an LDI boycott target, Walt Disney Co. is reported to be breaking corporate policy by launching an undertaking with the religious community – the marketing of a film based on C.S. Lewis’s novel for children and Christian allegory, The Chronicles of Narnia. Disney has carefully avoided religion for most of its history.

A leading mental health academic who advocates therapy for homosexuals wishing to change their “orientation” has been dismissed from the national professional advisory council of a top U.S., multi-billion-dollar managed-care company. Magellan Health Services Inc. says Warren Throckmorton’s positions were “potentially controversial” and not “in the best interests” of the company’s corporate clients and employees.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has given this year’s Maggie Awards to the movies Vera Drake and Kinsey. The awards, named after Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger, recognize “exceptional achievement” by the media and arts and entertainment industries in support of Planned Parenthood causes.

U.S. family groups are warning of “deviant content” that will be broadcast when two new homosexual TV channels are offered by cable providers. Comcast and Cox Communications have agreed to offer the homosexual channel Here, while Viacom is scheduled to launch LOGO, a homosexual-themed channel, on June 30.

An ad campaign for U.S. Carl’s Jr. restaurants is featuring an animated ultrasound image of a tough-talking unborn baby who threatens to rip out part of his mother’s womb if she doesn’t stop eating jalapeno peppers. Carl’s parent company, CKE Restaurants, is owned by Carl Karcher, who has been an advocate and financial supporter of pro-life causes and candidates for years.

The U.S. website www.discoverthenetworks.org is providing “a guide to the political left” that provides a listing of, and dossiers on, some of the key individual and organizational proponents of socialism – and, by extension, anti-life and anti-family causes – in that country. Some corporation-related culprits include the American Express Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the New York Times Foundation, the Sara Lee Foundation and the Verizon Foundation. However, the site also contains an entry on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Online auction agency eBay has changed its policy in the face of massive complaints about the sale of consecrated Communion hosts. For weeks, eBay had been belittling and ignoring calls from Catholics to prohibit the sale of the holy Eucharist, but finally, the company said it consulted with Catholic members and representatives of other religions and decided to include the Eucharist as one of its off-limits items.

After collecting 400,000 signatures, U.S. pro-family groups called off a boycott of Procter & Gamble, which was prompted by the corporation’s fervent support of the homosexual agenda. The American Family Association says P&G has stopped sponsoring homosexual internet sites and TV programs such as Will and Grace.