The Ford Motor Company is fairly well known for it’s support around the greater community. As part of that – it has made several donations and pubically supported several gay groups and societies. It also pro-activly supports equal oppertunity employement and lots of other things that appear quite balanced. Without intimate knowledge of how they operate – they seem to be a fairly good example for other large corporates.
Recently, due to losses and budget constraints, Ford has had to remove some advertising for some models from gay media. This appears to have brought to a head a fairly lengthy and ongoing battle between gay rights groups and the American Family Association, a Mississippi based conservative watchdog group.
The gay rights groups think that Ford has pandered to the AFA, and the AFA think ford is still supporting the gay rights groups. The AFA recently lifted a boycot on Ford possibly because of the removal of their advertising, but possibly because they realised that it was ineffective. Since the AFA’s boycot – Ford sales have actually increased – and their appears to have been no measurable impact at all.
I think that Ford’s track record speaks for itself, they are openly supportive of many community groups, not just gay rights. They have not withdrawn their support either, they have simply had to reduce some marketing costs.
The Gay Support by Troy Kelly, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
