Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Financial protest

And in another effort of Christians trying to wreak havoc with other people's pocketbooks, we have a Washington pastor urging people to buy Microsoft stock now and then sell it all on May 1 in an attempt to drive the price down. This is after he urged a boycott of the company's products in retaliation for the company supporting local gay-rights legislation.

Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, said the stock-dumping plan had been part of his strategy all along.

"You got to find out how you affect a company," Hutcherson said, conceding that it would be hard to get people to shun products from companies that dominate the marketplace as Microsoft and Boeing do. (Associated Press)

My question is whether this is the way we want to "affect" society around us. Attempting to financially hurt people that don't do what we want strikes me as a bit like the mob offering to "protect" businesses for a small fee. And if it's just a matter of money, how about we start paying people to do what we want? We could pay people to not get drunk, not be promiscuous, not get divorced, spend time with their children, etc, etc, etc.

And then there's the matter of whether this will actually do anything to the stock price. Sounds like a showdown to me. Do you think there are enough supporters of the legislation around the country to go out and buy Microsoft stock on May 1? If Christians want a referendum on their beliefs, they may not like the results!

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