According to a recent article in the Advocate, Ford Motor company, failing in its efforts to increase plummeting sales, has apparently decided that the best way to regain the hearts of Americans is to embrace homophobia.
The virulently anti-gay American Family Association (AFA) recently approached the foundering automobile company and informed them that, because Ford was advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications, the AFA would launch a boycott of the company.
Apparently, Ford immediately caved. On December 2nd, Ford spokesman Mike Moran told the Advocate.com that indeed, the company will stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in all gay publications.
For a short time Ford actually had been supportive of equal rights for all Americans, supporting various minority causes. No longer. Donald Wildmon, the AFA’s chairman, was quoted as saying “[Ford has] heard our concerns; they are acting on our concerns. We are pleased with where we are.”
Moran didn’t provide many details about its agreement with the AFA, although the assumption has to be that in upcoming Ku Klux Klan parades, the participants will all be driving brand new white Ford Tauruses.
Homophobia is an interesting policy for a company started by Henry Ford, one of Hitler’s strongest supporters in America, and one the country’s most outspoken anti-Semites. Ford was the author of such books as: "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem," which were distributed through Ford's car dealerships.
This bit of unhappy news comes at a time when Ford is in deep financial trouble, closing its plants and desperately trying to restructure the company. Interesting that the company seems to have decided that gays don’t buy Fords, or that the gay market, far bigger than the AFA market, isn’t worth holding on to. Also interesting that the company has decided its future lies in its past, in its gone-but-not-forgotten policies of discrimination and bias.
Most Americans are not familiar with the company’s shameful history, but now they have to chance to catch up. So far, the mainstream media has ignored the story, but many gay organziations and websites, from Datalounge.com to Americablog.com, are talking about ogranizing their own boycott.
In fact, at Americablog.com, John Aravosis has posted the names for Ford's public relation's people. His suggestion: “Let's fill their voice mail boxes over the weekend. Ask them if they'd pull all their advertising in black media or Jewish media if the Klan gave them a call:
Here are the names to call:
Contact: Rosemary Mariniello, Jaguar Land Rover North America, (201) 818-8010
Contact: Jim Cain, Ford Division, (313) 248-6288
Contact: Sara Tatchio, Lincoln and Mercury, (313) 594-3744
Contact: Roger Ormisher, Volvo Cars of North America, Inc., (800) 970-0888
Contact: George Pipas, Ford Motor Company, (313) 323-9216
Contact: Dan Bedore, Ford Division, (313) 323-7045