CNN: Ford can’t please anybody — Fending off a boycott from a conservative organization, automaker angers gay advocacy groups. — goodness sakes, I guess there probably are more conservative Christian fundamentalists than there are gay people in America, but still this just seems creepy to me. Besides that AFA (American Family Association) are the same folks who boycotted Disney of all things and are convinced that gay people are out to turn straight people gay (you can’t make up stuff this wacky).
Here’s an excerpt on this subject from my blog:
Ford has insisted that this is strictly a “business decision.” If Ford really just decided to pull the ads because they weren’t effective, then why is Donald Wildmon so smugly declaring victory?
This “business decision” is the crux of the problem. We’ve been making great headway in Corporate America by arguing the “business case” for diversity. Offering domestic partnership benefits doesn’t cost much, but attracts highly talented employees, we’ve argued successfully. Promoting respect and inclusion increases productivity, we attest, because employees who are respected do better work. We don’t bother to argue that it’s simply the right thing to do.
HRC, which rates companies on a 100-point Corporate Equality Index, explains that corporations are becoming more gay friendly because “fairness is good for business.”
But that makes for a dangerous equation. If the AFA folks buy more Fords than we do, we lose. Justice cannot be denied just because it doesn’t make money. It may be that Ford has concluded that an Equality Index score of 100 isn’t the right mark to aim for. They may decide to go for a sweet spot where the fundamentalists leave them alone; maybe an 82 or a 76.
The bottom line is, indeed, the bottom line. Ford is a corporation that exists to make money. As long as “shareholder value” is the only value that matters in Corporate America, Donald Wildmon will continue to carve notches into his belt.