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Absolutely. In our current economic system, your dollar is your vote. You spend money with a company because you think they best represent your interests, whatever they may be - price, esteem, convenience, quality, etc. As such, companies thrive or fail depending on how well they meet the demands of their paying customers - this transfers the responsibility for the practices of a company onto the consumers.
If a company acts ethically when consumers do not care about ethics, that company will disadvantage itself in the marketplace, especially since unethical practices tend to be cheaper. This is known as the 'tragedy of the commons' and is one major argument for regulation.
But you can't regulate for ethics, as that level of control by government tends to result in corruption. The next best system we've come up with to date is 'informed consumers', ie. consumers are responsible for the ethicality of the marketplace by favouring that which they think is best.
In this case, if you patronise Gloria Jeans and are aware of their political/religious leanings, then you are responsible for promoting those leanings. If said leanings are unethical (and in this case, the comments on the St James poll clearly demonstrate that they are), then that is the fault of the consumers.
But how can we demand that consumers know the political/ethical leanings of every company they patronise? It's extremely unreasonable, even with several watchdogs in play. Regulation is required to eliminate overt unethical behaviour, and to ensure transparency so that consumers can make properly informed choices.
Of course, none of this would be a problem if church and state were kept separate like they are supposed to be, and corporate donations/lobby groups were kept the hell away from politicians.
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