Animal Therapy: The Good and the Ugly
Earlier today I commented on Jon's blog that I was "willing to give Ford the benefit of the doubt and believe that this is just bad timing of an announcement they would have made no matter what." But I now have reason, based on this from Marty Kaplan at The Huffington Post, to believe that Ford, in announcing that it would dramatically reduce its advertising in gay publications, really did sell the gay community out to protect itself from an American Family Association boycott.
It's depressing to think that a company that has been honored for its commitment to gay rights would backslide like this in order to pander to the far right, but that's apparently what we've come to in America. Just this morning Andrew Sullivan remarked ruefully that when he left Britain 21 years ago for the United States, "there was no question that America led the way in equal rights for gays." Today gays in Britain are registering to enter into civil partnerships that both the law and the populace treat as equal to the marriages that they are in everything but their legal name. And in America, automakers are afraid to advertise to the gay community for fear of reprisals from a vocal and backward-thinking minority of people who believe in fairy tales.
Canada, England, South Africa, Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandanavia: every day the list of places to which I'd willingly move if not for family and friends I prefer not to leave behind grows longer. Because if the AFA can do this with Ford, it can do it with plenty of other companies, too. There are plenty more religious-righters than there are gay folk. Who will stand with us?
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Sometimes I think to myself, I am not going to go to Church anymore! That will show them! But then I think, it is not God who is doing this, it is people. Misguided bigots who take over Christianity do this to America.
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