INDIANAPOLIS -- A national fundamentalist Christian group is encouraging people to boycott Target over the retailer's new LGBT-friendly bathroom policy.
Target announced this week in a statement titled "Continuing to Stand for Inclusivity" that it would allow transgender team members and customers "to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity." FULL STATEMENT
MORE | Target takes a stand on gender identity and restrooms
The retailer's announcement came on the heels of a controversial North Carolina line that prevents transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
YOU REACT | Your best responses to the call to boycott Target
The law has already had financial impacts on North Carolina: PayPal scrapped a $3.6 million, 400-job expansion in the state; and a number of bands, including Pearl Jam, Boston and Bruce Springsteen have canceled concerts in the state.
MORE | PayPal cancels North Carolina expansion over discrimination law | Pearl Jam, Boston cancel North Carolina concerts over new LGBT law | North Carolina bathroom law could be decided in Virginia | LGBT law puts North Carolina governor in precarious position
While the issue plays out in the courts, the American Family Association – a fundamentalist Christian non-profit that opposes same-sex marriage, pornography and abortion – has called for its supporters to boycott Target in response to the retailer's pro-LGBT stance.
A post on AFA's website attempts to link policy's like Target's with sexual predators, saying, "Target's policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims. And with Target publicly boasting that men can enter women's bathrooms, where do you think predators are going to go?"
The post also calls for Target to instead provide a single-occupancy unisex bathroom restroom for transgender individuals.
As of Sunday afternoon, AFA's website claimed 400,504 people had signed its pledge to boycott Target.
AFA has taken controversial stances on homosexuality in the past. Former AFA California leader Scott Lively has claimed that all of the major leaders of the Nazi party were homosexual. In 2012, Bryan Fischer, then director of issues analysis for AFA, tweeted his support of kidnapping children from same-sex households.
The organization has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for the "propagation of known falsehoods" and "demonizing propaganda" against the LGBT community.
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