Lady Gaga-Office Depot Partnership Comes Under Right-Wing Fire

Somewhat unsurprisingly, some very active conservatives have taken Office Depot's partnership with Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation as a combined affront to teen heterosexuality.

According to The Huffington Post today via Right Wing Watch, the Florida Family Association (FFA) has serious issues with Office Depot helping Gaga's teen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-supporting cause foster a braver, kinder school year. The group made a "demand" that the retail chain take it's $1-million contribution offer off the table. The group's stance claims that Gaga promotes "[an] irresponsible message to many teens who would have eventually chosen to be straight."

A statement on the FFA website urges supporters to e-mail Office Depot higher-ups to reiterate the organization's stance. "The one million dollar pledge form Office Depot to the Lady Gaga Born This Way Foundation will influence many teens to embrace homosexuality for their lifetime who may have otherwise worked through their crisis with straight results," the site's message claims.

"Thousands of kids who might have otherwise worked through their pubescent sexual identity issues will be inspired to accept the wrong choice based upon this unscientific, emotionally charged propaganda," the positively Limbaugh-esque treatise continues. "What's brave or kind about telling thousands of sexually frustrated teens that they were Born This Way when a high percentage of them would have ended up taking the straight heterosexual path for life?"

So from what I gather, this group would rather have teens "influenced" to heterosexuality in the form of silently enduring abuse, threats, bullying and other torments and discrimination that Gaga's foundation aims to help them cope with when others won't lend a hand? The same people deriding Gaga's cause are more than likely the same ilk who would turn a blind eye to such abuse as just a consequence teens should accept for what they perceive as a "choice."

Perhaps there's a supposition that Gaga plans to build the first-ever $1-million straight-to-gay indoctrination center. One imagines that $1 million will buy quite a few copies of "Magic Mike" and the first three seasons of "Glee" on DVD or Blu-ray.

Let the record show, if this actually becomes a widely accepted supposition, I want no credit whatsoever.

Neither Gaga nor Office Depot officials have responded officially. Office Depot Chief Marketing Officer Bob Moore did call the Born This Way Foundation, via press release, "an inspirational organization that has the power to make a difference in the lives of today's youth."

The two groups have put together limited edition back-to-school supplies including "empowerment gift cards" and "Bravery Bracelets" that tell young people to "Be Amazing" and "Be Yourself," among other items of encouragement.