{"id":867,"date":"2011-07-15T00:47:20","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T04:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=867"},"modified":"2011-07-15T00:54:48","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T04:54:48","slug":"gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html","title":{"rendered":"Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Deadline and space limitations &#8212; even cyberspace has limits! &#8212; left some interesting notes on my cutting-room floor this week, so here&#8217;s my version of DVD extras for two stories that ran yesterday:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/07\/14\/corporate-giving_n_898833.html\">Corporate Culture Wars<\/a>\u00a0(Religion News Service)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A feature story prompted after \u00a0TOMS<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/07\/toms.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-873\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/70\/2011\/07\/toms-300x262.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"262\" \/><\/a>, a shoe company that donates a pair to a needy child for each one purchased, came under fire after CEO Blake Mycoskie participated in a Focus on the Family event. Several points didn&#8217;t make the cut:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Other\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/magazines\/fortune\/fortune_archive\/2006\/12\/11\/8395465\/index.htm):\">companies that have been protested for being unfriendly to gays<\/a>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Business\/target-best-buy-fire-campaign-contributions-minnesota-candidate\/story?id=11270194\">Target, Best Buy<\/a>&#8230; others?<\/li>\n<li>Beyond shoes, TOMS sells shirts, hats, and has recently added a sunglasses department, aimed at helping fund eyewear and medical treatment for vision impairments in the developing world. But critics of the for-profit company &#8212; which folded its nonprofit arm a few years ago &#8212; argue that buying pricy TOMS products, rather than donating directly to established nonprofit agencies, is an inefficient way to help the poor. Why not just buy a cheaper pair of shoes and then send the rest of the money to a well-established aid organization? Then again, would most people do that, or is this business model just easier?<\/li>\n<li>At what point does it become hypocritical for a civil rights group to protest a company over a business leader&#8217;s personal religious beliefs\/actions? Richard J. McGowan, a Butler University instructor, pointed out in an email: &#8220;The comments on the internet are full of enmity toward (Mycoskie) and TOMS while simultaneously being full of condemnation of hateful comments. I do not see the bonds of community being furthered by the reactive responses.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>2.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/uscmediareligion.org\/theScoop\/426\/Dalai-Lama-vs-Rick-Perry-Separating-Church-Stateor-Not\">Dalai Lama vs. Rick Perry: Separating Church &amp; State&#8230; or Not<\/a> (Trans\/Missions)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In my inaugural blog post for USC&#8217;s Trans\/Missions Scoop blog, I observed that the Dalai Lama&#8217;s recent <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/07\/07\/top-u-s-lawmakers-meet-with-dalai-lama\/\">remarks endorsing church-state separation<\/a> begged for some context &#8212; since <em>when<\/em> was the supreme spiritual and political head of the Tibetan government in exile against his own dual authority?! &#8212; in addition to coming at a <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/church-state-separation-not-for-presidential-candidates.html\">rather low point in America&#8217;s own practicing of what Thomas Jefferson had preached.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s some extra insight into the Dalai Lama&#8217;s position, courtesy of \u00a0Charles McDaniel, an assistant professor of church-state studies at Baylor University. Prof. McDaniel writes that the monk\u00a0began to take the stance of separation between religion and politics in August 2008, when he said that consolidation of spiritual and secular power under one leader in Tibet is out of date:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cHe has since stated that he recognizes his hypocrisy in this system, given his desire to free Buddhism from Chinese influence and promote international religious freedom \u2014 even as he retained control over the Tibetan government in exile,\u201d McDaniel said.<\/p>\n<p>The Dalai Lama caused a furor in January 2008, when he advising against prayer to the deity Dorje Shugden and required monks in Tibetan and Indian monasteries not to do so. That sparked protests that he was exercising undue power, and \u201che effectively resigned any temporal control in Tibet,\u201d McDaniel said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deadline and space limitations &#8212; even cyberspace has limits! &#8212; left some interesting notes on my cutting-room floor this week, so here&#8217;s my version of DVD extras for two stories that ran yesterday: 1.\u00a0Corporate Culture Wars\u00a0(Religion News Service) A feature story prompted after \u00a0TOMS, a shoe company that donates a pair to a needy child&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[337,335,14,338,295,336,154,341,165,64,289,339,340,334],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-american-family-association","tag-blake-mycoskie","tag-christianity","tag-dalai-lama","tag-evangelical-christianity","tag-focus-on-the-family","tag-gay-marriage","tag-gay-rights","tag-lgbt","tag-religious-freedom","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-tenzin-gyatso","tag-tibetan-buddhism","tag-toms"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Deadline and space limitations &#8212; even cyberspace has limits! &#8212; left some interesting notes on my cutting-room floor this week, so here&#8217;s my version of DVD extras for two stories that ran yesterday: 1.\u00a0Corporate Culture Wars\u00a0(Religion News Service) A feature story prompted after \u00a0TOMS, a shoe company that donates a pair to a needy child&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-15T04:47:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-15T04:54:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/07\/toms-300x262.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate - Belief Beat","og_description":"Deadline and space limitations &#8212; even cyberspace has limits! &#8212; left some interesting notes on my cutting-room floor this week, so here&#8217;s my version of DVD extras for two stories that ran yesterday: 1.\u00a0Corporate Culture Wars\u00a0(Religion News Service) A feature story prompted after \u00a0TOMS, a shoe company that donates a pair to a needy child&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-07-15T04:47:20+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-15T04:54:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/07\/toms-300x262.jpg"}],"author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html","name":"Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/07\/toms-300x262.jpg","datePublished":"2011-07-15T04:47:20+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-15T04:54:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/07\/toms-300x262.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/07\/toms-300x262.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/07\/gay-vs-christian-activists-in-corporate-clashes-dalai-lama-vs-gop-in-church-state-separation-debate.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gay vs. Christian Activists in Corporate Clashes; Dalai Lama vs. GOP in Church-State Separation Debate"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. 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