Ford, Families and Gays

I reported a few weeks ago that Ford had decided, despite considerable pressure from the religious right, to continue buying ads in gay-oriented publications. Now it seems that pressure has been turned up considerably. The Worldnutdaily has a report full of empty buzzwords and silliness:

Leaders of 42 pro-family groups have signed a letter asking Ford to honor what the activists see as a previous commitment to stop supporting homosexual advocacy efforts.

It always makes me angry to see religious right organizations described as "pro-family", because what does that make the rest of us? Anti-family? How absurd. They make it sound as though gay people don't have families. These people are not pro-family, they're only for families that look just like theirs (which in some cases appears to mean married male pastors propositioning male undercover cops for oral sex). They will gladly destroy families that include gay parents, taking away adopted or foster children or preventing such families from being formed in the first place, despite the voluminous evidence that gay parents are no better or worse than straight parents.

I would also point out that when they say that Ford is "supporting homosexual advocacy efforts" what they really mean is that Ford is selling cars to gay people. The dispute is over whether Ford should advertise its products in gay-oriented publications. Now, being the defender of the free market that I am, I can't conceive of any reason why Ford shouldn't be able to make its own decisions on where it is best to advertise their products. Given that gays tend to have higher income than the average in this country, this is probably a smart place to advertise.

In a statement from the American Family Association, the organization says the letter to Ford Motor Company Chairman Bill Ford asked the company to "stop supporting any group involved in the current cultural war."

How amusing. Given that Ford has long advertised in such publications - again, because it's smart business to do so - wouldn't caving in to the demands of the religious right be "supporting" a "group involved in the current cultural war"?

"We can not, and will not, sit by as Ford supports an agenda aimed at the destruction of the family," Wildmon stated, saying AFA asked the company for a response by Jan. 20.

Ah, that good ol' fashioned hysterical overreaction. You see, if Ford sells cars to gay people, your parents are going to feel a sudden urge to get divorced. Now I know it seems like there's no causal connection between these two things, but that's only because you're stuck in your naturalistic thinking. If a butterfly flapping its wings in China can trigger a hurricane in Venezuela, then a gay person buying a car in Massachusetts can destroy a family in Texas. Call it "spiritual chaos theory".

Then again, given that the divorce rate in Texas is already 2.5 times higher than the divorce rate in Massachusetts, and the rate of teen pregnancy in Texas was almost double that of Massachusetts, they seem to be doing a fine job of destroying families all on their own. The obvious explanation, of course, is that gay people in Texas (all 28 of them) buy a lot of cars.

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Something that sickens me about this whole "debate" is the fact that what we are debating is the way of life for over ten million children in this country. It blew me away when I was listening to Al Frankken a few weeks ago and he had a woman on who is the child of a gay father who has been with his partner through most of her childhood. Her name escapes me at the moment but she has become something of a defacto spokesperson for the children of gay parents. Now she grew up with a straight mother as well but she has met with many children being raised entirely bby same sex parents. The running theme she has run into in her conversations the last few years is the fact that many of these chilren were unaware until this "debate" regarnered national attention that their parents were not married already. It wasn't that their parents neccassarily claimed to be it was just that they assumed like most of their friends parents who live together that their parents obviously must be married too. In most children she has met this "debate" has been painful, even traumatic for them.

The other point she made that was very interesting is that many of these children are forced at a very young age to address their own sexuality and often times grow up far more secure in their sexuality than the general population does. She pointed to herself as an example having been asked when she was as young as seven years old if she was a homosexual. She's not by the way - the statistics that are coming out now show no difference in the prevelance of homosexuality among children being raised in same sex households than those in the general population.

Ford caving to the hate groups threw up such a backlash that they ended up choosing to advertise line they hadn't previously advertise in advocacy venues. I am very interested in seeing how this plays out now. The results will be a very indicitive of the status of the "culture wars."