Ford will continue to advertise in gay publications

http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=4018

Ford Motor Company issued a statement Wednesday reaffirming its commitment to diversity and pledging to advertise all of its brands in gay publications. The announcement was the second by the company since a meeting on Monday between a coalition of gay rights groups and the automaker.

The statement was in response to reports last week that Ford made a deal with the conservative American Family Association to cease some advertising in gay publications and support for gay organizations to avoid a boycott. Media reports said Ford had agreed to not advertise its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications.

"It is clear there is a misconception about our intent," said Joe Laymon, a Ford V.P., in the Dec. 14 statement. "As a result we have decided to run ads in these target publications that will include not only Jaguar and Land Rover, but all eight of Ford’s brands."

Representatives of the gay organizations that met with Ford praised the company’s actions in a joint statement.

...and also know how to boycott a company....

Lots of us let them hear what we thought of their caving in to fundy bigots. Guess they found out the yapping bigots were a smaller group than they let on. ;)

we stick by our convictions without wavering. I have boycotted a number of companies for years, even though some of them have tried to make ammends.

The Dobson brand of fundies have feet made of clay, and Ford knows this. They would rather alienate a couple of idiot freeper types instead of the whole gay community and its allies.

...just bought a new car, and Ford wasn't even a consideration because of their actions. I'll have to let them know that I applaud this reversal, but they were just a bit too slow with the announcement.

I won't consider them, even with their reversal.

Ford has shown its true underbelly.

Never another penny from me.

"Straight but not narrow" is not just a refrigerator magnet at our house!

From Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power 1919-1933 by James Pool and Suzanne Pool (The Dial Press, 1978), pp 111, 129:

"That Henry Ford, the famous automobile manufacturer gave money to the National Socialists directly or indirectly has never been disputed," said Konrad Heiden, one of the first biographers of Hitler.<87> Novelist Upton Sinclair wrote in The Flivver King, a book about Ford, that the Nazis got forty-thousand dollars from Ford to reprint anti-Jewish pamphlets in German translations, and that an additional $300,00 was later sent to Hitler through a grandson of the ex-Kaiser who acted as an intermediary.<88> The US Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, said in an interview that "certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy."<89> At the time of Dodd's criticisms, the general public was aware that he was speaking of Ford because the press made a direct association between Dodd's statements and other reports of Ford's anti-Semitism.

....

Henry Ford's reward from Hitler finally came in July 1938, when on his seventy-fifth birthday he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle. Ford was the first American and the fourth person in the world to receive this medal, which was the highest decoration that could be given to any non-German citizen. Benito Mussolini, another of Hitler's financiers, had been decorated with the same honor earlier that year.<128>

The presentation was made in Ford's Dearborn office by the German Counsul on Cleveland, Karl Kapp, and Consul Fritz Hailer of Detroit. Kapp placed the silk red sash over Ford's right shoulder. The sash was worn in a diagonal line from the right shoulder to the left hip where it was clasped with a gold and white cross. Kapp then pinned a large, shining star-shaped medal of Ford's white suit. The decoration was given "in recognition of pioneering in making motor cars available for the masses." Hitler's personal congratulatory message accompanied the award.<129>



Endnotes

87. Konrad Heiden, Hitler: A Biography, p. 221.
88. Upton Sinclair, The Flivver King: The Story of Ford in America (Pasadena, Calif., 1937), p. 109.
89. Georg Seldes, Facts and Fascism (New York, 1943), p. 122.
128. See Chapter 7.
129. Detroit News, July 31, 1938.

That is why they took the Union Bank away from him. For trading with the enemy. I declare TREASON runs deep in that malicious clan.

even as the mother of a gay daughter, I STILL just bought a foreign made car. The American ones I've owned SUCKED in comparison. That is my experience.

They're making the correct business decision. Disposable income talks and gays, often, are better positioned to have disposable income.

I wish they hadn't made the decision to ban them at all. It should not have been an issue. They should have shown those RW zealots the door as soon as they came knocking.

I hope this will put an end to their nonsense, but I know it won't.

something really smells about this whole thing..i work where instint is printed and i think ford pulled those ads last fall. i`ve been off for two months so i can`t check the back issues but when i left it was beer ads. i knew this thing was bullshit esp with the afa involved..sometimes we jump to conculsions without really researching the facts.

was the RIGHT and MORAL thing to do. When they were in the meeting with the bigots, the yshuld have simply stood up and said, "We are sorry, but your stance does not represent what Ford Motor Company is about", or one better, and not had the meeting to begin with.

Now it simply looks like what it is, an "oh, boy we fucked up with this one boys, we better fix this or we are gonna lose our asses".

Olafr

What the hell was Ford thinking? Did they think all the homophobic bigots of whatever stripe would ride to their rescue? The minute they caved to the Mississippi outfit, it became a lose-lose for them. Nobody in the auto industry would have come to their aid. If the Mississippi outfit won, GM or Daimler Chrysler would have been next. Even beyond the moral high road, it was just plain cover your ass common sense.
50 years ago, one could use the n word and not bat an eye, but no more. Homophobia is losing its acceptability. Gays and straights don't like it. And they got money and votes.
Someone at Ford is dumber than a bag of rocks. In the seventies, Ford was supposed to stand for Found On the Road, Dead. Somebody in Ford management has a dead brain.

Ford dealer. That's the way to deal with fundies, tell them to go fuck off! They will curl up and go hide under their rocks.

and had to wait on hold for about an hour because of "unususlly high call volume." My partner and I own a 2003 Ford Windstar van for me and our three children and a 2004 Ford Mustang for him. I told the customer service rep that since Bill Ford decided not to directly address the situation with his blah-blah-blah statement on Monday, I would be forced to choose other automakers for our next purchases. The rep (likely in India) told me which cars I owned before I even divulged it to her and she took down my statement even though she said they were merely tallying pro and con votes.

I am quite pleased that they have come around on this issue. They are basically saying that the AFA lied about their influence since Ford is obviously not meeting their demands. We didn't gain anything new, but we made up any lost ground we presumed we lost last week.

However, Ford could have avoided this whole brouhaha by:

1. Not allowing their right-wing former White House flunky VIPs to hold a meeting with the AFA bigots in the first place.

2. Once they held the meeting, they could have said, "Thank you for your concern. We'll get back to you on that."

3. As soon as the AFA did their little PR victory dance, Ford could have come forth with a forceful statement denying any quid pro quo with the AFA.

guess which way they chose.

I doubt they just suddenly decided to become gay friendly for any other reason.

Their decision not to cater to gay magazines is toss up - did they think america was mostly republican and it would increase their profit margin, or did their CEO's let his own agenda temporarily blind him.

<snip>

WASHINGTON -- Advertisements featuring Ford Motor Co.'s eight vehicle brands will run in gay publications, the automaker said Wednesday, acting after gay rights groups complained when Jaguar and Land Rover pulled their spots.

Ford is not ordering those luxury brands to resume their specific ads. Rather, the company's ads in the publications will promote all of its lines, which also include Ford, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury, Volvo and Aston Martin.

Last week, Ford cited a need to reduce its marketing costs in explaining why it no longer would advertise Jaguar and Land Rover in several gay publications.

On Wednesday, Ford wrote the gay rights groups that the luxury brands "made a business decision about their media plans and it would be inconsistent with the way we manage our business to direct them to do otherwise."

http://www.wesh.com/automotive/5540603/detail.html

Bad initial decision. At least they had the courage to change it.

Why in the hell would anybody care who Ford targets in its advertising? That's plain hateful.

who raised holy hell...they convinced Ford this was an asinine move.

Think about it. As a group, who is more affluent, and has a bigger constituency?

Gay groups or homophobic "Christian" organizations?

are enough gay AND GAY FRIENDLY $ to matter.

are going to be boycotting so much stuff they'll starve to death.
Wait, that wasn't nice. They could home school their kids and grow their own crops and kill their own cattle and purify their own water. But they would still have to pay taxes, which we all know goes mostly to paying ghetto women to have dozens of babies or funding 8th month abortions, or maybe both, I'm not sure.

A good boycott has to be focused and you have to have the economic clout to make a real impact.

They have neither - and their numbers are SO unprincipled they'll break the boycott ANYWAY.

That means I will bring back Volvo among my choices when I get a new car early next year.

The sweet bonus: It will piss AFA-fundies and freepers off beyond belief! Nominated for maximum effect.

Way to go FORD!

Or maybe it was just the seatbelt.

Anyway... Has there been a response from the fundies on this yet? Are they spitting fire?

I don't care about gay issues myself...don't have a dog in that fight. But it is FABULOUS when fundies get publicly slapped.

If homosexuality is such a sin for them, why are they checking out gay magazines for ads? Isn't it sinful for them to even look at them?

I know, it's for the children.

Remember a few years ago when some fundie group wanted to boycott Disney World over its Gay Days? That came to naught, too.