Target Boycotted Over Transgender Restrooms By American Family Association

Apr 22, 2016 10:31 AM EDT

Transgender public restrooms are a dangerous, new policy, asserts spokespeople of the nonprofit American Family Association. Due to that stance, the association's leaders Friday called for a boycott of Target, after representatives of the consumer retailer announced they will be allowing "transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity."

Read AFA's full pledge and boycott appeal here.

"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?" asserts AFA through its online offering of the boycott.

American Family Association is a Tupelo, Mississippi-based organization founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon, a pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time.  The original name of the ministry was National Federation for Decency, but was changed to American Family Association in 1988.

Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of America's culture war. AFA's interpretation of the new option means "a man can simply say he 'feels like a woman today' and enter the women's restroom...even if young girls or women are already in there."

To set the record straight, conservatives didn't start this fight, said Walker Wildmon, assistant to the AFA president.

"The city of Charlotte did. The city council in Charlotte, NC passed a resolution which said men could go in women's restrooms. In return, the state legislature convened in a special session and passed a state-wide law which clarified that biological men have to go to men's restrooms and biological women have to go to women's restrooms," he explained.

"Not to mention that Article VII of the North Carolina state constitution says that subjects already addressed in the state constitution cannot be regulated to the contrary by a local municipality. The area of non-discrimination policies had previously been addressed by the state legislature thus the city of Charlotte had no authority to pass this non-discrimination bathroom ordinance."

According to Target's new policy, Wildmon  said a man can be in the same restroom or changing room with his wife. "I refuse to put my wife at risk, so I will not be stepping foot in any Target store."

Last June when the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex "marriage" was legal across the United States, Wildmon points out many Christian organizations wondered where this movement would head.  "The legalization of same-sex "marriage" quickly moved to transgendered individuals wanting in the restrooms with people of the opposite sex. It is never enough when it comes to the LGBT movement," said Wildmon.

Dee Elaine Bragg, responding to AFA's boycott on Facebook, stated "The civil rights movement used boycotts and they were VERY effective. Believe this, their bottom line is MONEY and it is ONE thing we still have POWER over -- OUR money and where we shop!!!! If thousands of us who still believe in common decency boycott, we can stop this insanity. But it takes action and the will to say 'we are NOT gonna take it!!!!"