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RYAN LEE
Friday, March 21, 2008
Donald Wildmon regularly takes credit for tearing down Fortune 500 companies that his American Family Association complains are supportive of the “gay agenda.”
Wildmon most recently set his eyes on Ford, calling for a boycott of the company in spring 2006 because the automaker offered domestic partnership benefits to gay employees, sponsored gay rights organizations working to support same-sex marriage and advertised in gay media outlets.
“Ford has abandoned any pretense of being neutral in the homosexual marriage debate,” Wildmon said last June in a prepared statement. “They are going for the whole ball of wax, including homosexual polygamy.”
Last week, Wildmon called off the AFA’s boycott after Ford allegedly agreed to stop advertising in gay publications and supporting gay rights groups. He claims that Ford sales were down almost 10 percent each month during the two-year boycott.
Major media outlets trumpeted the story. “Score another victory for the American Family Association,” the Wall Street Journal reported in a story about Christian conservatives taking their case to corporate boardrooms. Even liberal media outlets like Radar magazine reported that “Ford Bends Over for Conservative Group,” accusing the automaker of “capitulating” to the AFA’s “homophobic demands.”
But Ford executives say, essentially, that Wildmon is exaggerating his group’s influence.
Ford representatives did not respond to interview requests by press time, but in a written statement to Adweek, Ford spokesperson Jim Cain said the company did not cave into the AFA’s demands as claimed.
“We are committed to treating everyone fairly and with respect, including our dealers, customers and employees,” Cain told Adweek. “Ford will continue to market its products widely to attract as many customers as possible, and make charitable contributions to strengthen communities to the extent business conditions allow.”
Ford continues to offer DP benefits to gay and lesbian employees, Ford divisions such as Volvo continue to advertise in gay publications, and Volvo remains a major corporate sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign.
Cain said that poor sales figures have caused Ford to cut back on its corporate giving and advertising, though Adweek noted that Ford’s advertising budget remained relatively stable over the last three years.
Wildmon tried to link the AFA boycott to slumping Ford sales in 2007, but the American auto giant is wading through financially difficult times.
“AFA did try to take credit for our decline in sales,” Ford spokesperson Kristen Kinley told the Blade in 2007. “Our response to that has been that there are a lot more powerful market forces at work than the AFA.”
Wildmon and the AFA have a record of lobbing outrageous allegations against corporations, calling ambiguous boycotts whose success is impossible to measure, announcing they are ending the boycott and celebrating their demands being met. Each and every time, the corporation denies paying attention to the AFA’s demands and reaffirms its gay-friendly policies.
In fall 2004, the AFA said that Procter & Gamble’s public support of a non-discrimination ballot initiative in its hometown of Cincinnati equated to an endorsement of same-sex marriage. The religious group launched one of its famous boycotts, then called it off in spring 2005 claiming that Procter & Gamble fired an executive who worked on behalf of the non-discrimination law.
Procter & Gamble actually gave that executive, Gary Wright, a paid leave of absence to work on behalf of the non-discrimination initiative, then left the company to work on behalf of gay rights full time.
Wildmon also called for a boycott of Kraft Foods for its support of the Gay Games, but the makers of Miracle Whip proceeded to be a major sponsor of the 2006 games in Chicago.
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