Social media users share reports, claiming that the CEO of Starbucks said that if you believe in a “traditional marriage” between a man and a woman, you should not drink Starbucks coffee. This claim is false: Starbucks openly supports same-sex marriage, but Reuters has found no evidence that former CEO Howard Schultz or current CEO Kevin Johnson ever said that people who are in a “traditional marriage” “do not believe in drinking Starbucks coffee. The comments seem to stem from a news headline that Schultz misquoted at the 2013 Starbucks Annual Meeting.
Many of the reports show a photo of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz with a snapshot of ‘News’, followed by the caption ‘Starbucks CEO:’ If you support a traditional marriage, DO NOT BUY us coffee not ‘”(here, here, here). The photo of Schultz used in many of the reports is a Reuters photo of April 13, 2010, visible here.
Another September 2020 message, still being shared in February 2021, is a text message that reads: “Starbucks CEO says if you believe the Bible interpretation of marriage between a man and a woman does not drink our coffee, OK Deal ! ! ”(Here). It is not clear who this particular post refers to, as Schultz stepped down as CEO in 2018 and was replaced by Kevin Johnson (here).
Reggie Borges, director of Starbucks for Global Communications, confirmed in an email to Reuters that these claims were untrue. Reuters found no evidence of these remarks in credible media reports, on the Starbucks website or on Schultz and Johnson’s social media channels.
The text of the quote is the same as the headline of a news article published and shared by Freedom Daily (in 2016), The Washington Press (in 2017) and My Christian Daily (in 2017), among others. removed, but can be seen as archived links here, here and here.
The articles refer to an exchange between a shareholder named Tom Strobhar and Schultz. They say Schultz “has” told a shareholder behind traditional marriages to sell his shares and invest elsewhere. ‘
An exchange between Strobhar and Schultz took place during Starbucks ‘annual shareholders’ meeting in 2013, as reported by several media outlets, including CNN and Forbes (here, here, here), and seen in a video Borges shared with Reuters, here visible.
Strobhar questioned Schultz at the meeting about sales and earnings allegedly suffering after Starbucks came out openly in support of same-sex marriage.
Schultz replied that supporting gay marriage is not an economic decision and if Strobhar thinks he can get a higher return elsewhere, he could sell his shares in Starbucks. ‘Not every decision is an economic decision […] The lens in which we make the decision is through the lens of our people. We employ more than 200,000 people in this business, and we want to accept diversity. Of all kinds. ”
He then said: ‘If you respectfully feel that you can achieve a higher return than the 38% you received last year, it is a free country. You can sell your shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much.”
While standing by his decision to be inclusive of same-sex marriage, Shultz did not say that consumers who support traditional marriage should not buy Starbucks coffee in this exchange.
Starbucks released a memo in 2012 in support of same-sex marriage, which is visible here. Following this, the National Organization for Marriage launched a campaign urging people to boycott Starbucks (here). Starbucks continued to support same-sex marriage, and in 2015 (here) issued a statement endorsing the Supreme Court’s ruling on marital equality, including actions supporting the inclusion of LGBTQ listed on the Starbucks website here .
The same claim has done the rounds in the past and was seen at the time by Politifact, Truth or Fiction and Snopes, as seen here, here and here.
VERDICT
Untrue. Starbucks confirmed to Reuters that neither former CEO Schultz nor current CEO Johnson made these remarks. The quote misinterprets a remark made by Schultz in 2013 about accepting same-sex marriage.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.