It’s been a while since we last heard from the American Family Association and its endless efforts to boycott companies that bother the group. As long-time readers may recall, every once in a while, Wildmon and the AFA will draw headlines for attacking a group or company for being insufficiently “pro-family,” though most of their complaints come across more as bizarre rants from extremists than anything else.
The targets from recent years include, but are by no means limited to, Wal-Mart (for promoting “Brokeback Mountain” DVDs), Target (for not having Salvation Army bell-ringers during the Christmas season), Ford Motor Company (for purchasing ads in gay-oriented publications), and the movie “Shark Tale” (which the AFA believed was intended to “brainwash children” into accepting gay rights). Last year, the AFA was particularly bold when it tried to block U.S. troops’ access to adult materials.
This week, the AFA decided McDonald’s is the new national scourge.
The “problem,” if you want to call it that, is the company’s vice president of communications, Richard Ellis, who has joined the board of directors for the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. In an “action alert” sent to supporters yesterday, the AFA’s Wildmon expressed his outrage.
According to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner, McDonald’s will aggressively promote the homosexual agenda. In remarks on McDonald’s Web site concerning the company becoming a member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), Skinner wrote: “Being a socially responsible organization is a fundamental part of who we are. We have an obligation to use our size and resources to make a difference in the world … and we do.”
Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say.
Regardless, I hope McDonald’s has the good sense to ignore the AFA’s complaints.
The AFA’s campaigns tend to get some attention, in large part because it’s entertaining to laugh at the group’s odd efforts, but there’s one point that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle: the AFA tends to fail.
In 2005, for example, the AFA announced that it was ending its nine-year boycott of Disney. The group’s efforts drew lots of media discussion, but in the end, a grand total of zero of the AFA’s demands had been met and the targeted company enjoyed a surge in profits over the life of the boycott (though the two were no doubt unrelated).
The point for McDonald’s to remember is that the AFA goes after everybody. The group has boycotted Crest toothpaste, Volkswagen, Tide detergent, Clorox bleach, Pampers, MTV, Abercrombie & Fitch, K-Mart, Burger King, American Airlines and S.C. Johnson & Son. For all I know, the group is going to launch a boycott against me for writing this post.
It shouldn’t matter, because these campaigns never amount to much. McDonald’s need not respond or care about the AFA’s concerns, because the group isn’t really in a position to do anything to hurt the company’s bottom line.
That said, it’s kind of fun to laugh at the group, isn’t it?