In 2007 and 2008 the boycott-happy Christian rightist organization American Family Association was touting its alleged success at beating down Ford Motor Company with a boycott because of that company’s gay-friendly marketing at Pride events.
Never mind that American car manufacturers across the board were suffering from weak sales and bloated inventories of gas hogs during an economic recession.
Today, Bloomberg business analysts project Ford may report a 2009 net profit of as much as $2.65 billion.
While Ford has been earning billions of dollars the past year, the AFA website has gone strangely silent about its boycott, taking credit instead for such things as blocking the nomination of Erroll Southers, to head up the Transportation Security Administration.
AFA is one of the most self-promoting (as well as self-righteous) organizations I’ve ever seen and they do an amazing job of stroking their maghas.
If Ford’s experience is any indication of real world results, manufacturers might want to consider ways to get on the AFA’s shit list.
UPDATE (01/28/2010):
I also posted this on my blog at Open Salon. A reader comment there by the hetero-pride activist and openly Christian Philos 777 alerts me of the need to update this post.
According to media reports, AFA unilaterally ended their boycott of Ford in 2008, claiming “the conditions of the original agreement presented in fall 2005 have been met.”
I was inspired to write this post for the simple reason that I was unable to find any information about the end of the boycott on the AFA website (google link), and I cannot find any there now.
Still, the end of the boycott was reported elsewhere, and I failed to notice that. It changes the look of things, but only slightly.
I’m not the only person questioning the effectiveness of the AFA boycott strategy for stoking members and raising millions for the Wildmons in Tupelo. According to one Business Journal blogger at that time, Ford remains staunchly “pro-gay”, despite the petition rattling and boycott threats. The writer casts other doubts on the AFA announcement as well.
I would also like to ask Philos: What happened in the year and a half or so after the boycott ended? Market trends rarely shift so quickly.
Did millions of AFA members suddenly fulfill their pent up desires to go out and buy Ford products during the middle of a recession after the boycott was over, causing Ford sales to soar?
I didn’t think so either.