Like I said elsewhere, go right ahead and run Ford out of business. You and Aravosis can explain to the unemployed glbt Ford workers who lose their jobs and their benefits in the process how doing so was necessary to stop the AFA from getting glbt Ford workers stripped of their jobs and benefits. You can point out how their livelihoods were less important than Ford being required to run gay-specific ads in gay publications. You can explain why you'd rather see Ford in bankruptcy with ALL workers, glbt included, losing their pay and benefits than see them "cave to the religious right" by changing their advertising.

Then you can go look up the definition of "Pyrrhic victory" -- that is, if they let you live long enough.

Oh, wait. Crackerbarrel is still in business. So is Microsoft. They just reversed themselves and told the gay haters to fuck off. Ford can do the same, restore their good name, save jobs, etc.

Sheesh, North Dallas Thirty, gay rights folks aren't "requiring" Ford to advertise in gay publications. Ford already was advertising in gay publications. The gays are calling bullshit on the religious right's attempt to undermine the free market by trying to intimidate Ford into practicing discrimination. Did you have a problem with the AFA's boycott threat? Wouldn't that have hurt Ford workers too?

Dan, don't you find it offensives that cars and beers and other brands create gay-themed, Latino-themed, woman-themed, etc. ads for targeted publications, but then DON'T run them anywhere else?

Personally, I would like to see a gay-themed ad in a gay mag and a mainstream mag. Or I would like to see efforts to be more multicultural in ALL advertising, not just in targeted publications where few people will notice outside of the targeted group.

If IKEA can do it, why can't everyone else?

SNCC, this summer, when the AFA boycott was announced, two of the reasons they gave were that Ford had a perfect HRC score and that Ford was currently giving GLAAD up to $1,000 for each Jaguar sold or leased. You show me where Savage, Aravosis, HRC, or the others were putting a tenth of the effort into praising Ford then that they are into bashing them now, and you show me where that made a single dent in Jaguar sales.

To put it simply, Ford isn't going to chase "maybe" sales when it knows that doing so will cost it solid sales elsewhere. The day the AFA boycott was announced in June, Ford dealers everywhere said that they were getting an unusually-high number of calls from long-time customers who said they would never buy another Ford. Were Savage, Aravosis, or HRC organizing thank-you calls or activities for Ford, or promoting them as a means of countering those calls?

Ford made a statement to the gay community that they weren't going to continue to give and give and give without getting something back big enough to counter the other threat. Our reaction, rather than dealing with the fact that they are right, was to call them "anti-Semitic" and "Nazis", something which ought to do wonders for their willingness to be nice to us, and then try to damage their business, which will have the net effect of putting glbts out of work and diminishing the amount of money Ford can spend on ANY advertising or community sponsorships.

In short, you haven't done a damn thing to damage the AFA. You're damaging Ford, and you're setting us up to be blamed for any of Ford's future financial problems.