Target Stores Hit With Bomb Threat After 'Turning Its Back' On LGBTQ+ Community
At least five Targets in multiple states received bomb threats Friday over company executives pulling the Pride collection section because of mounting boycotts, leading to multiple stores being evacuated as police and the FBI searched for explosive devices.
"Target is full of [redacted] cowards who turned their back on the LGBT community and decided to cater to homophobic right wing, redneck, bigots, who protested and vandalized their store," reads a threatening email sent to several Target locations in Ohio and one in Pennsylvania, Cleveland 19 News reports.
"We won't stand idly by as the far right continues to hunt us down. We are sending you a message, we placed a bomb in the following Targets. We will continue to bomb your Targets until you stop cowering and bring back your LBGT merchandise. "
One shopper told 19 News, "I know a lot of people around here are not a fan of LGBT that kind of stuff me personally I mean it's whatever. I never thought someone would go as far as a bomb threat."
In Utah, local media outlet KUTV said, "Bomb threats were made to Target stores in Layton, Salt Lake, Taylorsville, and Provo."
On Thursday, one day before the bomb threat was made, we reported a Fox News insider confirmed Target stores across the South and rural America removed controversial LGBT-themed products ahead of June Pride month to avoid further backlash. Some products ranged from "tuck-friendly" swimsuits for transgender people to gender-fluid coffee mugs. The insider said the reasoning behind such an abrupt move is "to avoid the kind of backlash Bud Light has received in recent weeks."
As we noted last week...
Corporations have freedom of speech under the First Amendment but have to understand if their political ideologies don't align with customers, then the people also have freedom of speech to voice their opinion. That's why corporations should probably stay out of identity politics or risk pissing off both sides, because what Target did by moving pride products to the back and scaling down the section will likely spark outrage in the trans community.
And the Target bomb threat comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a diehard progressive, tweeted, "CEO of Target Brian Cornell selling out the LGBTQ+ community to extremists is a real profile in courage."
"This isn't just a couple of stores in the South. There is a systematic attack on the gay community happening across the country," Newsom said.
CEO of Target Brian Cornell selling out the LGBTQ+ community to extremists is a real profile in courage.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 24, 2023
This isn’t just a couple stores in the South. There is a systematic attack on the gay community happening across the country.
Wake up America.
This doesn’t stop here.… https://t.co/1vRgukaT0g
Did Newsom's tweet incite the radical left's attack on Target?
And congrats to Target's executives who have managed to anger conservatives and progressives.
