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Beware the Boycott
By John W. Kennedy | March 18, 2008
For two years I received an e-mail from American Family Association proclaiming its boycott of Ford Motor Co. to be a great success. This ministry typically cited the automotive giant’s huge quarterly losses, connecting that to customer dissatisfaction with Ford’s “promotion of the homosexual agenda.”
Last week AFA announced that it had called off the boycott because Ford had seen the folly of pandering to gay clientele. AFA declared that its protest played a “very significant role” in Ford’s 8 percent drop in monthly sales over a 24-month period.
I doubt that Ford’s troubles stem from a massive consumer rebellion among conservative Christians. I know some good Christian people who will never drive anything but a Ford, no matter what the company does. Ford, like General Motors and Chrysler, started its financial slide long before the boycott began a couple of years ago. The chief factor of course is economic: consumers are buying foreign-made cars that are less expensive instead.
One of the problems with singling out a certain corporation for a boycott is that there are plenty of other firms with the same policies. According to the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual lobbying group, Ford (along with GM and DaimlerChrysler) is one of 195 U.S. companies with a perfect “corporate equality” rating. Ford didn’t make HRC’s gay-friendly list until long after companies such as American Airlines, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Nike and Xerox had paved the way.
Other ministries have used a scattergun approach against Disney, claiming its gay-friendliness is somehow more offensive than media giants Time Warner or Viacom.
There’s nothing wrong with boycotting if it’s done consistently. In the past I’ve refused to eat at certain restaurants or buy from certain chain stores whose parent corporation donated to Planned Parenthood. But it’s tough to be principled in boycotting today because there are few companies, when all the subsidiaries are considered, not donating to homosexual rights or abortion rights groups.
Topics: boycott |
March 23rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Beware the Boycott indeed. Some boycotts seem pretty clear cut. But other calls for boycotts, perhaps like the AFA boycott of Ford, are not very well thought out, and if sucessful, could result in very unfortunate unexpected consequences. The zealots pushing a particular cause may not realize, and may not be especially interested, about who is getting caught in the crossfire. Ford is a major manufacturer in this town, and we have a lot of good Christion folk getting their daily bread from Ford.
As a member of a church board some years ago, I remember a prominent board member proposing a boycott of a nearby convenience/gas station. After all, they sold beer, and someone might drink the beer while driving. This proposal was meeting with many nods of approval until further discussion revealed the proposal was very flawed, if not downright ignorant. And so it goes.