MassResistance successfully fights corporate “cancel culture”; defends pro-family Christian ministry.
With no warning, the Center for Garden State Families in New Jersey was suddenly without credit card donations – after company determined it was a “reputational risk.”
But after sharp pro-family activism, company offered to bring them back!
October 29, 2024
The Center for Garden State Families is an unwavering Christian ministry.Conservatives and pro-family organizations live in fear of being “cancelled” by leftist businesses that provide needed services. Whether it’s loss of credit card processing, advertising revenue, or web hosting, etc. — when it happens, our side usually succumbs. Just complaining doesn’t solve the problem.
Instead, MassResistance believes in confronting “cancel culture” head on. Doing so sends a strong message and brings results. Here’s a recent example.
Greg Quinlan and Garden State Families
Greg Quinlan is the president of Center for Garden State Families, a New Jersey Christian ministry serving families as a religious educational organization promoting the traditional Christian worldview in culture and public policy.
Greg is a former homosexual who shares his powerful testimony. He was once an aggressive lobbyist for the LGBT movement. Since then he has worked with groups like Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) which ministers to people who have left homosexuality.
A major part of Garden State Families’ financial support comes from donors who have set up recurring monthly credit card donations. For its credit card processing, the organization had been using Pro-Life Payments which describes itself as a Christian company and certainly appeared to be a trustworthy choice.
One day in late August, Greg suddenly noticed that no recurring donations – or any credit card donations at all – were being processed! The organization’s main source of income had simply been shut off. It was alarming. Greg immediately contacted Pro-Life Payments. They had no idea that this had happened, or why it was happening.
Later that day Pro-Life Payments called Greg back. They had been told that Greg’s organization has been flagged as a “reputational risk” to the bank that ultimately handles the credit card payments.
When Greg pressed them for something in writing, Pro-Life Payments forwarded the message they had received:
Here is the further info on the reputational risk. "Merchant account was flagged with an alert for hate/harm. Multiple negative reviews have been observed online. Additionally, this account owner appears to own PFOX (https://www.pfox.org) which promotes controversial viewpoints that present reputational risk." We will not be opening this merchant account back up for these reasons.
An alert for “hate/harm”? Why is a Christian perspective on helping ex-gays considered a “reputational risk”? What was going on?
As Greg began to learn, Pro-Life Payments is just a re-seller of credit card services. The actual processing and payments are done by Avidia Bank in Hudson, Massachusetts, and its affiliated credit card division, PayCosmos.
It turns out that PayCosmos had engaged some “bots” to scrape the Internet for information on the bank’s credit card processing clients. The company did not even check to see if the reports were accurate. (For example, Greg never “owned” PFOX. He served on their Board.) They decided that a Christian perspective on helping ex-gays constituted “hate” or “harm.”
Without any warning, PayCosmos suddenly shut down Garden State Families’ credit card processing. Moreover, they did not notify Greg or Pro-Life Payments that they’d done that. That is the mindset of leftist corporate America regarding people with traditional values. A pro-LGBT group would never be treated that way.
Greg was able to speak with the head of PayCosmos by phone. He was smug and condescending, Greg told us. He told Greg that his contract allows PayCosmos to shut Greg’s account down at any time without notice and without any reason.
Contacting MassResistance!
Since MassResistance has worked with Greg on various projects over the years, he didn’t hesitate to call us for help.
We have hundreds of supporters and activists in Massachusetts, where Avidia Bank is located. And people have had enough of the corporate cancel culture against Christians! So when MassResistance contacted pro-family people across the state, they pounded Avidia Bank through phone calls, emails, and social media. They threatened to picket the bank’s branches over this.
Clearly, that was a reaction that the bank never expected!
The bank backs down! Offers to bring Greg back.
On October 2, the head of PayCosmos spoke with MassResistance’s Arthur Schaper. He told Arthur that the president of Avidia Bank had called him and said that they were willing to bring back Garden State Families and reinstate their account.
He refused to tell Arthur the specifics of the “information” that caused PayCosmos to shut down Greg’s account. But they were willing to bring him back, he said.
But Greg has moved on to another credit card company.
However, by that time Greg had arranged to move Garden State Families’ credit card processing to another company.
Greg chose Anedot, which is a Christian-based company that has its own bank and credit card processing facility – to provide immunity from the corporate cancellation that happened with Pro-Life Payments.
Unfortunately, the secure process of moving all the monthly credit card accounts to Anedot took several weeks, which we suspect was due to PayCosmos not cooperating properly. But now it’s all done! Greg’s group is getting its funding, and most of the monthly donors have even agreed to make up the difference for the time the system was down!
Final Thoughts
The fact that these companies would consider random Internet searches to be legitimate sources of information says a lot about their actual motives. Everyone knows that a bot could scrape absurd diatribes about most conservative groups from the SPLC, Wikipedia, and the rantings on various LGBT sites that have virtually no basis in truth or reality. Leftist companies, like the mainstream media, simply look for reasons to “cancel” organizations with traditional values.
It’s shockingly difficult to get the conservative and pro-family movement to get over its fears and aggressively stand up to the left’s “cancel culture.” But it must be done.
Please help us continue to do our uncompromising work!
Our successes depend on people like you.
Your support will make the difference!
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