Target is being sued for allegedly betraying its core customer base by continuing to sell LGBT Pride gear — including designs from a Satan-lover — in spite of the company’s hemorrhaging loss in the stock market.
Target partnered with the U.K.-based brand Abprallen and transgender designer Erik Carnell to sell its designs for PRIDE month (abprallenuk/Instagram).
The lawsuit was filed by conservative legal firm American First Legal on behalf of investor Brian Craig, who in April 2022, spent $50,000 for 216.50 shares of Target. The nonprofit organization is led by Stephen Miller, a former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump.
Shannon Thaler from the New York Post reported:
By April 2023, the value of Craig’s holdings fell to $34,839, and then dropped to $28,896 by June 14 — in the middle of Pride Month, as Target was in the middle of a boycott triggered by a collection that included children’s book titled “‘Twas the Night Before Pride,” and a handful of T-shirts donning LGBTQ-friendly slogans, like “live laugh lesbian.”
Target’s “board of directors betrayed both Target’s core customer base of working families and its investors by making false and misleading statements concerning Target’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) mandates that led to its disastrous 2023 children-and-family themed LGBT Pride campaign.”
The lawsuit asserted that Target led “shareholders to unknowingly support Target’s board and management in their misuse of investor funds to serve its divisive political and social goals — and ultimately lose billions.” American First Legal alleges that Target “continued the LGBT-Pride campaign and continues to sell products associated with the campaign, causing further damage to Target’s stock price.”
Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel of American First Legal, addressed the company’s violation of rules in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 in a press release:
Federal law requires publicly-traded corporations to provide certain information to shareholders in their proxy statements that allow those shareholders to make informed decisions. As alleged in our complaint, Target failed to execute its duty to its shareholders.
Since introducing the PRIDE apparel, Target has lost $14 billion in market value.
Take Pride merchandise display in Target in Queens, New York (Lindsey Nicholson/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In its latest quarterly report, Target said sales declined. Company officials said the decline was due, in part, to customer reactions and boycotts stemming from its Pride month activities. Shares of the company are down 4.7 percent over the past month and have fallen 15.8 percent so far in 2023.
