{"id":5905,"date":"2005-11-22T12:21:12","date_gmt":"2005-11-22T17:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5905"},"modified":"2005-11-22T12:21:12","modified_gmt":"2005-11-22T17:21:12","slug":"the-afa-has-a-new-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-afa-has-a-new-target\/","title":{"rendered":"The AFA has a new ‘Target’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Family Association is like a jukebox that only plays one song. The religious right group doesn’t have a lot of money, or members, or influence, but they can organize a boycott<\/a> at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n

According to an alert issued yesterday by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, the AFA is worked up about another alleged injustice. This time, it’s Target and its holiday-celebrating ways.<\/p>\n

Target stores have continued to ban Salvation Army kettles from storefronts and the phrase “Merry Christmas” from advertising, which has prompted the American Family Association (AFA) to launch a boycott of the retail giant.<\/p>\n

In just three days, more than 300,000 people pledged to steer clear of Target during the biggest shopping weekend of the year — the days following Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

Randy Sharp, director of special projects for AFA, said, on average, more than 4,000 people are signing on to the boycott every hour.<\/p>\n

“Shoppers are growing disgruntled by companies that are choosing to do away with a simple greeting like ‘Merry Christmas,'” he said, “and they are showing it with their pocketbooks.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, as a factual matter, Target insists it has no policy against<\/a> using the phrase “Merry Christmas.” Second, as a financial matter, Target shouldn’t worry too much about the AFA; the group’s targeted companies usually find their bottom line going up<\/i><\/a> during an AFA boycott.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the right’s perceived “war against Christmas” is getting pretty tiresome. Fox News’ John Gibson<\/a> has a bizarre book out, while Bill O’Reilly<\/a>, Charles Krauthammer<\/a>, and the truly silly Committee to Save Merry Christmas<\/a> will probably enjoy the holiday season by whining a lot.<\/p>\n

And what’s truly annoying is to hear complainers lose sight of those who really suffer. Last year, armed police broke up a Christmas Mass<\/a> at an underground Catholic church in eastern China, arresting the priest, demolishing a makeshift pulpit and scattering two thousand worshippers. Around the same time, some seasonal temp at the mall wished Bill O’Reilly a generic “Happy Holidays” and he felt like a victim.<\/p>\n

A little perspective, people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Family Association is like a jukebox that only plays one song. The religious right group doesn’t have a lot of money, or members, or influence, but they can organize a boycott at the drop of a hat. According to an alert issued yesterday by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, the AFA is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}