It's all too obvious. Isn't it strange that Urban Outfitters is owned by this idiot?
Over the course of Urban Outfitters' rise to market dominance, Hayne has bled all the politics, left-wing or otherwise, out of his business dealings. "As a company, we don't contribute to any cause except noncontroversial things like a breast cancer walk," he says. "I don't know anybody who is for breast cancer."
Yet Hayne himself is an ardent Republican. He is a financial supporter of arch conservative Sen. Rick Santorum, whose recent comments about homosexuals equated gay sex with incest and bestiality.
When PW asks Hayne about his financial support of Santorum, he initially denies it. And when presented with a computer printout of Santorum's campaign donors from the Center for Responsive Politics website--which cites a $4,650 contribution from Urban Outfitters--he responds: "I'll have to look into this. I don't think this is right." In fact, he and his wife have contributed $13,150 to Santorum and Santorum's Political Action Committee over the years.
Asked to clarify for the record whether he ever contributed to Santorum's reelection campaign, he counters, "I don't want to mislead you. Like many people, I have some affinity for Rick Santorum, and I have problems with some of his positions."
And where does Santorum's position on homosexuality fit in his comfort zone?
"I'm not going to comment on it," he says, irked. "I have my own opinion, but I am not going to share it. Our job as a business is not to promote a political agenda. That's not what we do. There are all kinds of political views held by my employees. Some would be horrified to learn that we contributed to Santorum's campaign, and others would be fine with it. We openly discuss and joke about our political differences."
It's not a mystery that the right would love to suppress turnout of young voters. It's a little strange how obvious they feel they can be about it.
