I'm offended, but only because of how fence-sitting, spineless and wishy-washy the Starbucks position is.
"We don't want guns in our stores (to try and appease the anti's who won't shut up), but we're not going to actually say anything, post anything, or do anything beyond this statement here (to try and not tick off the pro-gun people either)."
Weakness and stupidity on their part for thinking this will make the whole thing "go away faster" which I gather is what Starbucks really wants. This just continues it. Anti's will whine that it's "not enough", and Pro's will now be pissed.
They should have had the strength to stay the course Starbucks was on, which was "We don't care either way, and just want to mind our own business which is selling coffee, and following the laws of the states in which our various stores reside, period." This is now like a parent with two bickering kids in the back seat of the car, and finally caves in and gives some sort of hollow concession to the one that's being the most annoying.
Never works.
Allow me to retort.
Lets say that in a parallel universe, Burger King decides that it takes a standoffish stance on gay marriage, after Chick-Fil-A takes a very definate stance. Gays see this as an endorsement, start showing up in larger numbers to the stores. This is good for business, even if they lose a few on the other side who start counter protests. Some of the gays with more screws loose start ratcheting up their 'buycotts' by staging mini gay parades around the stores which in turn starts to scare off even some of the more moderate customers, while the other side starts protesting more loudly. Finally, the gays go full retard and start occupying the bathrooms, punch holes in the stalls and start running glory holes in Burger King stores to flaunt their 'right to sodomy.'
At which point of the spectrum do you think Burger King (in parallel universe) should have stepped in and said "whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't promote homosexuality, we don't fight homosexuality, in fact we don't even care about the politics, please keep your pants on and try not to scare the other guests of our stores."
