SunTrust Backpedals on Burning Bridges With Benham Brothers
Who knew a big bank could backpedal so quickly? After abruptly cutting ties with the Benham brothers, who had just fallen victim to Right Wing Watch’s smear campaign that pressured HGTV to nix their reality TV show Flip It Forward, SunTrust is now welcoming the Christians with open arms once again.
“We were caught off-guard with this one,” David Benham said of SunTrust’s actions last week, according to The Daily Caller. “Keeping us off television wasn’t enough, now this agenda to silence wants us out of the marketplace.”
The brothers said the news came “without warning or explanation from SunTrust and took place over a 15-minute period” on Thursday and that up until then they had a “mutually productive working relationship with SunTrust for many years” and even held “preferred broker” status with SunTrust.
SunTrust contacted Charisma News with a statement, insisting the bank supports the rights of all Americans to fully exercise their freedoms granted under the Constitution, including those with respect to free speech and freedom of religion.
“Mid-2013, we consolidated the management of certain residential assets with a third party vendor, which has the relationship with Benham Real Estate,” SunTrust says in the statement. “While we do not publicly comment on specific vendor relationships, we don’t make choices on suppliers nor base business decisions on political factors, nor do we direct our third party vendors to do so. We clarified our policies with our vendor and the issue has been resolved.”
Chris Stone, founder of Faith Driven Consumer, called SunTrust’s move to reverse its decision to cut ties with the Benham brothers a testament to the power of faith-driven consumers and all fair-minded Americans who took a swift stand against discrimination and intolerance in any form.
“We applaud SunTrust for recognizing our concerns and responding quickly to address them,” Stone says. “We are grateful to those many thousands who came together and collectively raised their voices in a united call for tolerance, fairness and equality for all Americans. This also applies to those who hold to a biblical worldview, which includes respect for life and natural marriage.”
