Hypocrisy Unlimited: Anti-Gay Groups Denounce Boycott
Boycotts are a time-honored and almost always legal tool that has been used throughout American history by activists across the political spectrum to help force or prevent certain actions. Most people see the decision not to buy from particular outlets as a legitimate and precious part of our First Amendment rights.
Anti-gay religious groups, however, apparently have a different view. And it sounds a whole lot like, "Do as I say, not as I do."
It鈥檚 well known that many such groups have led boycotts of companies that support LGBT rights, typically because they supposedly back "the homosexual lifestyle" or produce risque entertainment. But when LGBT supporters call for boycotts of companies that support anti-gay causes and rhetoric 鈥 as they have in recent weeks 鈥 well, that's when the very same anti-gay religious groups begin to whine about "," "," and "bullying."
Most recently, several anti-gay groups are spitting mad about a surprisingly successful grassroots of the Charity Give Back Group (CGBG, formerly the Christian Values Network), a that gives a percentage of each purchase to religiously oriented groups, including anti-gay groups like the (FRC), (FOF), and the . 人兽性交 lists FRC as an anti-gay hate group because of its especially demonizing and baseless propaganda about LGBT people.
The petition campaign against CGBG and targeted Microsoft, asking that it "stop raising money for antigay hate groups." Within 20 hours, Microsoft had cut its ties to CGBG. Wells Fargo and Delta Airlines soon followed. Another petition then urged Apple to do the same, and it wasn鈥檛 long before Apple withdrew iTunes from the listing on the CGBG site. Since then, nearly 200 companies have withdrawn from CGBG, a for-profit operation.
The response of anti-gay groups like FRC is to complain that LGBT groups are forcing companies to "discriminate" against Christians. FRC launched a "" campaign that demands that companies "resist pressure to discriminate against customers with a traditional, biblical view of marriage."
The FRC's Peter Sprigg later appeared on the 's (AFA) American Family Radio to discuss the campaign against CGBG, where he lamented that people "are afraid of the homosexual activists." (The 人兽性交 also lists the AFA as an anti-gay hate group because of its denigration of LGBT people.) And in spite of Sprigg's and the FRC's of LGBT people, Sprigg claimed on the show that "everything we do is motivated by love for the people who are hurt by this lifestyle." FRC shows that "love" through boycotts, too 鈥 鈥渄iscrimination,鈥 as the group would have it, against and , which have been too friendly to LGBT people for FRC鈥檚 taste.
The AFA is no stranger to boycotts, or hypocrisy, either. 聽They've for its line of LGBT-friendly cards, and for supporting LGBT rights. This past May, One Million Moms, an AFA project, to try to convince advertisers to drop their support of the TV show 鈥淕lee,鈥 which, they claimed, was glorifying "the homosexual lifestyle."
Focus on the Family is also trying to derail the boycott of CGBG. Its political arm, CitizenLink, is to write to the companies that cut their ties to CGBG. FOF's own record includes boycotts of , which donated to a gay rights group, and , 聽because that company supported the repeal of an ordinance that discriminated against LGBT people.
Bill Donohue of the hard-line has joined forces with FRC in decrying the CGBG boycott, claiming, "Radical proponents of gay marriage have taken the culture war to the marketplace." Most astonishingly 鈥 and totally falsely 鈥 Donohue denied that religious-right groups lead similar pressure campaigns. He neglected to mention that after he harshly criticized the Smithsonian for its exhibit of LGBT-themed art, one of the offending works was removed. In earlier years, the Catholic League urged boycotts of 20th Century Fox, ABC and Disney; threatened a boycott of CBS; and demanded that ABC kill a television drama about a Catholic priest 鈥 all examples of the pressure campaigns Donahue says the religious right does not engage in. (Catholic League spokesman Jeff Field saw it differently, saying the league's boycotts were merely aimed at those who "defame our religion." He differentiated that from "asking corporations to become involved in the culture wars.")
Not to be outdone, the Liberty Counsel's yesterday's program on 鈥淔aith and Freedom鈥 radio to a discussion of how "homo-fascists" are unfairly pressuring businesses to drop out of CGBG's charity program. Christians, Barber claims, are victims of "persecution" from LGBT people. But that didn鈥檛 stop Barber鈥檚 group, in 2008, from over the restaurant chain鈥檚 donation to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, claiming that the company was personally attacking tens of millions of Americans who support "traditional morality." That鈥檚 not all. Every year, Liberty Counsel to support businesses that "honor Christmas" and avoid those that don't in their annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign."
Isn鈥檛 this precisely the kind of thing the religious-right groups like to call 鈥渕oral relativism鈥?