" Shhh - There's a Boycott Going On": Christian conservatives whine "Hey! WE ruined Ford!"

[Bluebear]

It would be pathetic if it weren't so perniciously hateful. My favorite part is that the media won't cover this ridiculous boycott because it would embolden Christian conservatives, as if they have ever bit their busybody holier-than-thou tongues over anything.


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Shhh -- There's a Boycott Going On

Since March 2006, the American Family Association and 18 other pro-family organizations have targeted Ford over the company's donations to homosexual political groups and advertisements in homosexual-themed magazines. Ford's sales have fallen in 10 of the last 12 months compared with the year before. You'd never know it from media reports.

Contact: Robert Knight, Culture and Media Institute, 703-683-9733

TUPELO, Miss., April 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- Robert Knight releases the following comments:

Have you driven Ford crazy lately?

That would be a good question for the nation's business media to ask the American Family Association (AFA), which has been boycotting Ford Motor Company for the past year.

Since March 2006, the AFA and 18 other pro-family organizations have targeted Ford over the company's donations to homosexual political groups and advertisements in homosexual-themed magazines. You'd never know it from media reports.

The Culture and Media Institute's just-published Eye on Culture report, "Media Ignore Ford Boycott" by Colleen Raezler, reviews the events of the past year and the media's peculiar silence on the boycott. Some key facts:

* Ford's sales have fallen in 10 of the last 12 months compared with the year before.

* Ford reported a loss of $12.7 billion in 2006.

* More than 700,000 people have signed an on-line petition supporting the boycott.

* AFA's e-mail list, with updates on the boycott, has grown to more than 3 million.

* A group representing 75 North Texas Ford dealers sent a letter to Ford in June 2006 asking the company to rethink its aggressive sponsorship of homosexual activism.

With Ford closing plants, laying off employees, hemorrhaging red ink and a facing a dealer uprising in Texas, wouldn't you think that business reporters would include at least a mention of the boycott in their coverage of Ford's woes? Alas, no.

It's true that Ford is being hurt by pension obligations, high employee wage and health costs, intensified competition from Toyota and other car makers, and an over-reliance on gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks. But the company's willingness to alienate large numbers of Middle American consumers in order to appease the tiny segment of the population (less than 2 percent) that describes itself as "homosexual" should also be news.

CMI's National Cultural Values Survey found that only 14 percent of Americans believe homosexual behavior is always acceptable. In contrast, 49 percent of adult Americans say homosexual behavior is always wrong. 46 percent attend church at least several times per month.

Is Ford finally waking up and smelling the coffee? There is evidence that Ford might quietly be putting the brakes on its blatant promotion of homosexual activism. Ford declined to sponsor the 2007 Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Awards, which it had in previous years. In one of the few articles alluding to the boycott, the Detroit News reported on March 10 that a Ford spokeswoman addressed the GLAAD non-sponsorship by noting only that "advertising and sponsorship decisions for all our brands are strictly driven by business considerations." In 2005, Ford's "business considerations" included offering $1,000 donations to GLAAD with the purchase or lease of a new Jaguar.

(GLAAD, by the way, reviews all Hollywood movie and TV scripts to ensure only positive portrayals of homosexuality. GLAAD wants to keep from the public any hint of the many tragic consequences of the homosexual lifestyle, which include a sharply shortened lifespan and higher rates of substance abuse, promiscuity, STDs, domestic violence and depression.)


Before beginning its action, AFA had met with Ford officials in November, 2005 and agreed to cancel a planned boycott after the company agreed to stop placing ads in gay publications. But within two days of meeting with gay rights groups in December, 2005, Ford flipped and announced that it was not only continuing its ads in gay magazines but expanding to include more Ford products. The folks at AFA felt as if they'd been hit by a driver who, after running over them, put it in reverse and backed over them as well.

Still, taking a page from Scripture, in which believers are advised to "be slow to anger," AFA tried one more time. In January, the group sent a letter to then-Chairman Bill Ford signed by 43 other pro-family organizations, asking Ford to return to a neutral position in the culture wars. The response was an SUV-sized Bronx cheer.

By March, 2006, AFA President Don Wildmon had had enough, and announced the boycott.

The networks reported the beginning of the boycott, but then hurried from the scene like accident witnesses who don't want to get involved.

The selective reporting might just say something about media priorities, the power of the homosexual lobby, and the media's fear of giving even a little credit to Christian conservatives lest it embolden them.

Better to leave this particular vehicle parked in the shadows, down by the river, where, GLAAD willing, it will be allowed to rust in peace.

Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.

http://www.earnedmedia.org/afa0411.htm

[wake.up.america]

1. These so-called Christian conservatives should spend their time more constructively.

[xchrom]

2. they should be getting their christian fuck on --

then maybe they'd stop bothering the rest of us with their angst.

[Clark2008]

3. Oh God (no pun intended), they don't really believe this, do they?

[DeSwiss]

4. Whoa there Mr. Homophobe Knight. Give credit where credit is due...

Daimler's been looking for a buyer to take Chrysler off their hands (since you can barely give those cars away -- except maybe Jeeps). And GM has been looking to merge with anybody who has a few billion or so salted away. Both, for quite some time as well.

And Ford's no different. Actually they've been hemorrhaging money for a long time. All the domestic auto-makers are hurting and they largely put themselves in this bind by continuing to build gas-guzzling vehicles and fighting (read: paying the previous Repuke-controlled Congress to ax legislation) fuel-efficiency regulations. Instead of investing in the future. A future they apparently can't envision.

The result is, Toyota, et. al. is eating their lunch. Particularly after gasoline became so high you almost had to sign-over your first born to fill up. And Dubya's economic policies have shown themselves to work as splendidly here at home, as the ones he's "using" in Iraq and Afghanistan. People are losing their homes from onerous mortgage loans and will soon be sleeping in their cars and trucks. What a mess.

No, Mr. Knight I'm sorry. This wasn't your doing. Ford's being "hoist by its own petard."

*** - You know there is a silver lining to all this. If the domestic auto-makers do fold and they stop making pickup trucks, we can tell all those angry Red-State Bubbas that the Fundies did it. That'll learn em'......

:P

[Ian David]

5. I'm boycotting Ford, too. Because gays are not immune to Global Warming. n/t

[unpossibles]

6. the power of the homosexual lobby?

is that the same one trying to outlaw equal rights for gay people?

(I am not attacking the OP just the idiot quoted who said that)

[noonwitch]

7. Ford's problems are not due to the whacko boycott

I think that Ford will ride out the rough times and have a comeback in a few years. Then again, I'm a loyal Ford customer, who has had many relatives work there over the years.

Ford is having problems because they have not been competitive over the years, and are slow to respond to market demands. They make too many trucks and not enough fuel-efficient models. My 2005 Focus gets pretty good mileage (25 city, 32-33 highway), but it could be better.