When Charity Becomes a Casualty in the Culture War

The founder of TOMS, the charity-business that gives away a pair of shoes for every one sold, has now apologized on his blog for agreeing to speak at a Focus on the Family event.

So there you go. FOTF tries for a kinder, gentler approach to engaging the culture than they've been accused of in the past, and TOMS would have had a chance to enlist a much wider audience into helping people. None of that mattered to campaigners who'd be damned if they let service to those in need take precedence over winning the culture war.

Sigh...

Now, I don't think Mycoskie, a member of the progressive evangelical Mosaic church in Los Angeles, has managed this mess well at all. Accepting the invitation and then backing down with an explanation that he now knows "the full extent of Focus on the Famiy's beliefs" and finds them at odds with his? That seems to be a recipe for annoying absolutely everyone. But what's really sad is how some people set out to make his charity collateral damage in the pursuit of a larger socio-political agenda.