What Small Minded, Mean Little People

Voluntary (for now), but ugly, very ugly

The self-styled American Family Association has decided to boycott Ford Motors for …. trying to sell its products to consumers by advertising them in newspapers and magazines. That is, advertising them to consumers that the AFA would prefer not exist (if you get my drift). As their leader Donald Wildmon stated, “All we wanted was for Ford to refrain from choosing sides in the cultural war, and supporting groups which promote same-sex marriage is not remaining neutral,” but Ford isn’t “supporting groups” by making philanthropic donations; it is paying The Advocate to print advertisements that will appeal to readers, who will then buy cars and enrich the shareholders and employees of Ford. Wildmon & Co. are not mad at Ford for giving away money to bad causes, or for making bad cars, or for treating people badly, or for supporting bad policies; they are angry at Ford Motors for trying to advertise their products and sell them to people at a profit, which is what one would expect of a for-profit firm. But in this case, the AFA would prefer that those consumers not consume anything, because they would prefer that those consumers not exist.

Boycots violate no rights, so I’ve no objection on that score, but they can provide insight into the hearts of those who promote them, and the AFA’s attempt to organize a boycot of Ford for trying to sell cars provides a truly repulsive peek.

(For those who point out that the AFA and related groups are merely using their dollars to promote their agenda, it’s worth noting that they strongly favor putting gay people in prison and subjecting them to extraordinary coercion and violence. Boycotts of the sort discussed above are the best they can do at the moment, but violence is very much a part of their agenda; support for sodomy laws is support for exercising violence against the innocent. Second, to say that something is voluntary is not the same as saying that it is noble or that it is exempt from criticism; boycotting Ford for trying to sell cars, whether to gay people or to Jews or to blacks or to Arizonans, shows a truly hateful attitude, not toward the product, but toward those consumers, who just shouldn’t be consuming.)