I've written several times in the past about the homophobe lobby and Ford. They've been urging a boycott of Ford because - gasp! - they advertise and sell cars to gay people. Apparently gays are supposed to walk everywhere, or hitch rides with the Amish in their buggies. But their latest attack on Ford is incredibly brazen. At the annual shareholder's meeting, going on right now in Deleware, they tried to pass a resolution amending the company's equal employment opportunity rules to take out sexual orientation. Now, there's no point in removing sexual orientation from the discrimination rules unless you actually want to discriminate against gays.
But what on earth is their reason? Are gay people incapable of working on an assembly line, or in an accounting department? See, a sane, rational human being understands that it's hard enough to find good employees in any line of work. No one in their right mind rules out employees on the basis of completely irrelevant traits like who they choose to share their life with. But these are not sane or rational people we're dealing with. They're people who, to be blunt, hate gays and want them to disappear from the planet (through "reparative therapy" if by no other means). What other possible explanation is there for actually urging companies to discriminate against gays?
The resolution failed, by the way. In fact, it only got the support of 5% of the delegates - and these loonies think that's a victory:
Dr. Don Wildmon, founder and chairman of the American Family Association (AFA), says he is extremely pleased with the Ford shareholder vote. "The mere fact that five percent voted for this proposal came as a shock. I think it sends a loud message," says the AFA leader. "And we're very grateful that we got that five percent and that this issue can come back up again next year. We have a lot of time to work on it."
Wow. I've heard of seeing things through rose-colored glasses, but this is downright delusional. There are brutal dictators who don't get 95% support in fixed elections, for crying out loud. But that's nothing compared to the absurdity of Gary Cass, chairman of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. Look at his statement:
Cass notes that Ford is already in serious financial difficulty, but in his words, "We must put the well-being of our children ahead of Ford Motor Company's bottom line."
Uh, yeah. Because if gays are allowed to build cars, something bad will happen to our children. Or something. And egads, if they're allowed to buy cars, they could use them to kidnap our children! These Godly crusaders will not rest until every gay person has to ride their bike to work. No, wait, that's not right - gay people aren't supposed to have jobs because companies should discriminate against them. They will not rest until every gay person has to ride their bike to their leather bars and their pride parades. Uh, wait, those should be shut down as well. Well then, they will not rest until gay people can only ride their bikes to see their reparative therapist to cure them of being gay! Once they're cured, then we'll let them have cars again. Ah, what tangled webs of stupidity they weave...
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Because if gays are allowed to build cars, something bad will happen to our children.
Of course, first children will learn to tolerate gays. Then, in the coming years gay children will feel -GASP- comfortable with themselves. People might not hate gays anymore! Oh the humanity.
I hadn't noticed the source, so when I read the article I was shocked by the "pro-family" term. Anti-tolerance or pro-bigotry would be more appropriate.
I've been trying to understand why gays are the target of such visceral (love that word) hatred, and have come to the conclusion that gay-bashers have a hard time thinking of gays as anything else but sex objects.
What I mean by this is that instead of being able to react to gays as they would any other human beings, any time they think about them, homophobes can't get past mental images of two men kissing, fondling, having sex with each other. For example, much of the homophobic bile written about Brokeback Mountain on message boards was far more explicit than the movie itself.
I'm a straight guy, and maybe it's just me, but I have no desire to see two men having sex with each other (now, two women on the other hand....). Does that make me a homophobe? Of course not, but then I don't go around with mental pictures of my gay friends having sex with each other all the time.
Perhaps we should think about discriminating against old people too--there's no way they should be having sex. After all, who wants to have to think about two eighty year-olds going at it?
Well, you know how stupid that lot are, just by the acronym they use: CRAC. I guess we can call them CRAC-heads until they wise up and change their name.
I think it should be obvious that any company that discriminates against anyone for reasons irrelevant to the job at hand is doing themselves a disservice.
I often hear the bigots claim that gays are only 1% of the population and that they get attention out of proportion to the their numbers.
But it seems to me that at least in creative endeavors, gays are way over represented than their population should indicate.
I think Ford knows this.
The resolution failed, by the way. In fact, it only got the support of 5% of the delegates - and these loonies think that's a victory
I'd say it is quite a lot by European standards.
BTW: why HTML tags are no longer working?
this was supposed to be italics
HTML tags should still be working. Let's test it and see.
Hmmm. The bold tags worked but the italics tag didn't. I'll have to do some investigating. I wonder if the alternative 'em' tag will work.
Yep, the 'em' tag works, the 'i' tag doesn't. I don't know why, but I just posted a message to the techies to find out why. I much prefer the 'i' tag just because I'm used to it.
Roman, use blockquote instead of italics for quoting.
Was that 5% of delegates or of shares? I can happily say that I voted against the bigotry (my few shares).
I worked on the line at Ford some years ago. I never saw any problems due to sexual orientation, racism, political ideology, or anything along those lines. Even "The Preacher" received only harmless teasing (he stopped asking me if I was saved after I told him I had a school project in which I hoped to find now-extinct mastodons associated with paleoindian remains. He told me, "You know, everything that couldn't swim, died in the flood," and left me alone).
"Wildmon believes in puttin' all gay folks afoot. Says there'll be less mischief that way."
- John Wayne, True Grit,1969
(Well, not really...)
Roman, use blockquote instead of italics for quoting.
Yes, sir!
I'm pretty sure that it's gone away because the <i> tag is deprecated by the W3C. Apparently it's too much of a mixture of structure and presentation for them.
I want my tag back!
Down with the W3C!
These people are absolutely nuts. I'm now retired but I spent a life time working for and with gays, both male and female, and I found them not one whit different to work with than straights. Sexual preference simply wasn't a factor on the job or afterhours when we bent elbows together. I had my partner, my wife, and then had their partners. I've traveled with them, shared hotel rooms (with the males), and been to their "weddings" of yore. Many are still among my best friends. In fact I would have trusted them with my children, when they were young, had I a need to do so. But I have heterosexual acquaintances with whom I wouldn't trust my dog. Character is a function of personality and upbringing, not sexual prefence. And by the way, aren't pedophiles more commonly heterosexual than homosexual?