Ethics on the hot pavement of life

I know a woman who needs a job. She also has a strong conscience. And this is a year of moribund economy. That trifecta of factors prompts the following question for you, dear reader:

The woman has an interview with Target. That's good. But Christians in her area have told her that Target pays for abortions. The lady is staunchly and vocally pro-life.

Between this new paragraph and paragraph two I did some checking and it turns out that the Target Foundation has severed its ties with Planned Parenthood as the result of an effective 10-year boycott by Pro-Life Action Ministries. (I told took a break from writing this to notify the lady.) Life Decisions International, an organizer of nationwide boycotts of businesses that donate to Planned Parenthood, announced that Target is no longer on their list. Three cheers for the pro-life foot soldiers!

Nevertheless, Mark Dayton, an heir to the Daytons' department store fortune (Target started as an offshoot of Dayton Hudson Corporation, which later changed its name to Target Corporation.), is running in the 2010 governor's race in Minnesota, and supports abortion and LGBT issues. This is problematic for the aforementioned Target-applying lady.

This isn't the lady's first collision between employment and scruples. At one job, employees were able to designate which group they wanted to be the recipient of their United Way donations. She had chosen the Boy Scouts and a home for unwed mothers. Then her local United Way chapter cut off the Boy Scouts for refusing to have homosexual troop leaders. As all donations at work henceforth went into a general fund, employees had no option as to where the money went. The lady put down "0.00" on her pledge card. Her boss thought she was making a big deal out of nothing.

The lady thinks she knows how her late husband would advise her: Almost every corporation in America has ties to some issue we don't agree with, he would say. If you make your employment decisions based on who your company is connected to, you'll never get a job.

How would you counsel this woman?

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