The anti-gay bigoted American Family Association announced last May that it was urging a boycott of the Ford Motor Corporation “because of the company’s track record for supporting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.” Bowing to pressure from the AFA, last week Ford announced that it was discontinuing its advertising campaigns in gay-related publications such as the Advocate.
The Advocate reports: “The antigay American Family Association claimed a cultural victory on Thursday and called off its threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. On Friday, Ford spokesman Mike Moran confirmed to Advocate.com that the company will stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications but insisted it was strictly a business decision.”
The deal which avoided the boycott was negotiated at AFA’s headquarters in Tupelo, Mississippi by Ford’s General Counsel, David Leitch, a former top official in the Bush White House.
The decision alarmed Ford’s gay employees. The company rushed to reassure its gay employees that it was not abandoning them. A statement from Ford to its gay employees read in part: “AFA announced it was ending its boycott of Ford . . . the purpose of which was to protest certain Ford marketing activities aimed at the gay and lesbian community . . . Frankly, in retrospect we certainly could have marketed our product in a better manner that was just effective without offending anyone . . . Like any good business, we try to listen to all our customers and learn from their input. But, in the end, it is not always possible to please everyone.”
Indeed it is not possible to please everyone. And the GLBT community can, in turn, go to another car manufacturer to purchase their automobiles.
3 comments:
If you're interested in the details of this story, John Aravosis has been covering it very thoroughly at Americablog. His latest post is titled Let's Start Dissecting Ford's Lies"
Ford calling this strictly a "business decision" is horseshit. They caved to the bigots.
[Note--I zapped my previous comment because I accidentally hit the publish button before I was finished and couldn't figure out how to edit it]
Jeez. I just bought a Mazda and I wish now that I hadn't. Love the car but I wrote and told them that I won't be purchasing another if they are caving to the bigots.
Post a Comment