John Cole alerted me to this story:
A conservative Christian group launched a boycott against Ford Motor Co. Tuesday, saying the second-largest U.S. automaker has given thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offers benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruits gay employees.“From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality… Ford leads the way,” American Family Association chairman Donald Wildmon said in a statement.
Yes…and your point is? If Ford Motor Company wants to include in its outreach programs Gay Rights groups, what the hell business is it of AFA and loonbat Wildmon?
Quite simply, this is getting embarrassing. Yes Bill Ford, CEO of Ford Motor Company is a moonbat of the first order:
Young Bill got a prep school education before going to Princeton and MIT. He is a tae kwon do blackbelt, a student of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and a folk guitar player.His most notable contribution since becoming chairman 2 years ago has been to try to make Ford the most environmentally friendly automaker. He has horrified many in the industry — and many at the company — by publicly blaming auto emissions for greenhouse gases causing climate change. He speaks passionately about a future with cleaner alternative fuels, recyclable cars and compostable parts.
The fact that his most “notable” contribution since becoming chairman has been to turn Ford into a green oasis will catch up to him soon enough. One would think that the most notable contribution a CEO could make to his company is to, like, you know, make some effing money for the shareholders! The fact that his interests lie with Buddhism rather than profits may eventually be his downfall. And if he wants to waste the time of his managers on “diversity sessions” rather than building cars he better brush up on that folk guitar because the only job he’ll be able to get after the stockholders fire his ass is street musician.
Well, that won’t happen…after all he is a Ford.
This still doesn’t excuse the AFA and Mr. Wildebeast from going after companies that…do what”
Laymon added that other automakers—including General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp.—provide benefits for same-sex partners and market their vehicles to the gay community.“It is one of the things that makes us proud to be part of the auto industry,” Laymon said.
It’s high time that the Republican Party started to distance themselves from these crazies. You can’t tell me that a majority of Republican lawmakers find this sort of thing acceptable. You can’t tell me that 10% of Republican lawmakers agree with this. It’s loony politics. Why take a position that’s opposed by a vast majority of the American people who support most of the rights for gay people outlined in the boycott statement? I’m the first to line up against things like teaching 8 year olds the why’s and wherefore’s of gay sex (or any kind of sex for that matter). But this? This is nuts.
It’s hard to defend the religious right sometimes when people like Wildmon and Dobson constantly make such gigantic asses of themselves.
10:01 am
I don’t understand your lumping of Dr. James Dobson in with Wildmon. Is it because you believe that Dobson said Spongebob Squarepants was gay?
This article, from someone who was actually in the audience when Dobson mentioned Spongebob, lays that silliness to rest.
10:14 am
Excellent post!
12:49 pm
Any organization has the responsibility to inform it’s members of entities that promote practices and/or values that are in direct opposition to that organization’s stated doctrine. These types of boycotts are invariably futile but they inform the entity of practices many find objectionable. Do you really think a vast majority support the following:
Forced sensitivity training on gay/lesbian issues
Portions of revenue being spent on gay/lesbian action groups
Extension of health care to include gay/lesbian partners
The targeted recruitment of any minority group as opposed to seeking the most qualified
Keep this up and I will boycott your site which means no more links on my blog (and the loss of those 5 or 6 readers)...:)
12:50 pm
Rick—
Wildmon is free to do as he wishes. Boycotts are a perfectly legal means for interest groups to apply pressure to businesses that do things they don’t like. Just because he’s associated with the “Religious Right” (whatever that is) doesn’t mean he speaks for any Republicans. I think Cole should chill out, as he’s starting to sound a little bit like Andrew Sullivan.
California just defeated a bill to redefine marriage. California!—not Utah. Folks don’t necessarily dig it. While I don’t see any obvious harm from what Ford is doing, I likewise don’t see the harm from what Wildmon is doing. It’s merely a scuffle in the cockfighting pit that is the marketplace of ideas.
The problem as I see it, is that Wildmon and others (you mentioned Dobson) are only members of the so-called Religious Right when what they are doing is offensive to liberals. When they are working food pantries or giving aid to sick children or whatever, they become anonymous religious figures. These people are not demons, even if they have some strong views that most Republicans disagree with. To Sullivanize them is just as offensive as what the Democrats are doing to Republican judidicial nominees.
3:57 pm
That is the problem with extremist reactionary politics, sans a steady diet of confrontation with the purportedly evil institutions that threaten us all with evil and decay, the agenda shrivels. And let’s face it, without Gays, welfare recipients and immigrants to get all sweaty about, what exactly does the right have to offer this country anymore? Besides exponential debt growth, world-wide opprobrium, and war, of course.
We’ve now passed the tipping point for the reactionary agenda in this country. Bush’s poll numbers are declining rather quickly now, and even some of his fellow Republicans in Congress are starting to step away.
Ford, eh? I guess the Sponge Bob thing didn’t work out for them.
4:15 pm
You are the biggest horses ass I know…and the biggest wishful thinker I’ve ever heard of.
Bush’s numbers are trending UP, nitwit. And as far as ideas, the only idea the democrats have they share with France: non!
4:24 pm
Franklin Pierce—
You are, frankly, a fool. The left is intellectually and morally bankrupt, and you are a prime exponent of the reason why.
You assert that only “gays’ (which you inexplicably capitalize), “welfare recipients” and “immigrants” are all that the right is interested in, ignoring national defense, lower taxes, free trade, Social Security reform, ending judicial activism, ending race-based discrimination and dozens of other concepts.
You assert world-wide oppobrium as if were a given that (a) the United States is now hated worldwide (false); and (b) the United States would be loved if only a Democrat occupied the White House (not only false but silly). Here I also demonstrate your lazy inability to make a logical argument, by actually drawing your inferences out and reframing them. No charge, by the way.
Nor does the national debt, as you assert, grow exponentially, which 30 seconds with a calculator would tell you is absurd. Moreover, as a percentage of GDP it is at a quite reasonable level. I won’t bother to make your argument here as to why I should care about the growth in the national debt, since Rubinomics already disproved itself from 2000 to 2003, when the debt grew yet interest rates simultaneously fell.
Bush’s poll numbers are actually increasing, though it matters not a whit to your argument, if I can call it that. Nor are any Republicans “starting to step away” (whatever that means). I don’t even know who Ford and Sponge Bob are, but suffice to say you have put up 75 words of drivel, with no facts, no argument and no logic. In short, you have wasted pixels that you did not pay for.
Why don’t run along to a place where someone cares, like the Demoocratic Underground?
P.S. Sorry, Rick. Somebody has to take out the trash.
4:26 pm
P.P.S. Just saw your comment, too. IIRC Franklin Pierce was also a rotten president.
4:35 pm
I appreciate the help.
BTW…I agree that Wildmon et al have a perfect right to do what they wish…my beef is that at present, about half the Fortune 500 companies have gay outreach programs and allow domestic partner rights. If these conservative companies recognize the reality that gays are here and among us, why can’t Dobson and Wildmon? Gay marraige, unless an activist judge rules, will not come anytime soon. But I support partner rights (because it applies to hetro couples living together as well.
Big companies cannot ignore a segment of the population as large as the Asian minority. That’s bad business. Nor can they ignore the percentage of their employees who are gay.
Moonbat Ford is in big trouble for his leadership. Let the stockholders handle it. That’s the American way.
4:42 pm
Fresh Air: Latest Zogby (46% approval), Pew (43%), ARG (43%), and Gallup (48%) all show the Little President’s numbers sinking deeper into the crapper in the last couple of weeks. As far as national defense (recruitment goals in the tank, forces over extended due to Georgie’s vanity oil war), lower taxes (resulting in exponential debt growth as Wimpy Bush lacks the balls to cut programs or stop increasing the Fed head count), free trade (Communist Chinese goods flooding into the country as Bush again lacks the balls to mess with the source of so much of his happy cash), and Social Security reform (kids are going to need those accounts to help pay off all that Georgie Bush debt they’re expected to handle!)? Well, just looks like a big old record of failure to those of us on planet Earth.
The lame duck is starting to smell real funny. Try coming up for air once in a while and check it out.
4:51 pm
You took four different polls from four different time periods! That alone qualifies you for idiocy.
As for the rest, see me at the end of the year regarding recruitment goals. Same thing happened in 2002 and 2003 with shortages in the first half of the year that were made up in the second half.
BTW…what happened to the draft?
Forces are “overextended”? I don’t think you know what that means. Stretched a little? Maybe, as a direct result of Clinton’s war on the military in the 1990’s.
“Little” George’s vanity war has changed the face of the planet…you know, earth…the one you missed on your way to moonbat land.
4:54 pm
Rick—
The key to all of this is defending the DOMA, not enacting the FMA. The way to do this is to amend the act so it is not subject to judicial review. It can be done legally under the constitution. It is the path of least resistance and would allow the states to set up partner arrangements as they saw fit, but would prevent usurpations like we saw in San Francisco las year.
Franklin—
“Vanity oil war”? “Happy cash”? What the hell are these things supposed to mean? Is this what you call an argument: a series of spurious insults peppered with non-sequiturs?
If this is what passes for intelligence on the left, you folks are in worse shape than I thought.
BTW, I think your bong is calling…
4:54 pm
The polls all came out in the last two weeks, Little Ricky. And the draft? Maybe we should start with all those Young Republicans and see how quickly they start growing their hair. And it is true, Little Georgie’s war has changed the face of the Earth. You should pay a visit now and again and see exactly how.
4:59 pm
Fresh Air: Let me type slowly so you can keep up. By “Happy Cash” we’re talking about Georgie’s propensity to borrow money in order to maintain popular Federal programs while refusing to raise the cash through taxes it would take to maintain them. That the GOP offers to maintain these programs through the borrowing of money rather than actually paying for them is a sign of the fiscal irresponsibility that has made us the world’s #1 debtor nation. And if you don’t think Iraq was all about oil, then you’re a bigger fool than even I thought.
5:01 pm
As for the draft, you moonbats were saying we’d have it now? Where is it?
I don’t know which is sadder – your believing there’s going to be a draft or the manipulative SOB’s at Move-on who are laughing at you for being so gullible as to believe them.
5:02 pm
Never said there was going to be a draft, Little Ricky. Try getting a little closer to your computer screen and squinting.
5:04 pm
The next time you call me little Ricky, you’re banned.
5:19 pm
Franklin—
I’m reading slowly, but it isn’t helping. You implied goods coming in from China amounted to “happy cash.” Geez, I thought that trade worked two ways: you know, we sell the Chinese things and they sell us stuff too. Isn’t the cash “happy” both ways? Moreover, in what way are fungible trade dollars tied to anything having to do with U.S. fiscal policy? I’m trying to understand, honest, but this doesn’t make any sense at all.
Now then, I’m sure you would like to assign certain borrowings to programs you don’t like, and certain shortfalls to programs you do like for political purposes. But money doesn’t work that way; it’s fungible. I am not particularly happy with Congress myself, especially with the expanded Medicare benefit. But implying we need to raise taxes to pay for a certain program is silly insofar as the money doesn’t attach itself to anything. Your comments imply there are “good” taxes for popular programs and “bad” taxes for…(I’m going to fill this in for you now) illegal wars. In reality, there is only income and outgo.
Your “#1 debtor” argument is silly, given that we are by far the world’s largest economy we are far better able to handle future debt payments.
If Iraq was all about oil, then answer the following questions: (1) Where the hell is it? Shouldn’t it just be flooding into this country on CIA-flagged supertankers to the Chimpy McBu$hitler offloading stations in Florida? (2) If we just wanted cheap oil why wouldn’t we push for ending the sanctions on Saddam? It would have been a fair easier and cheaper way to accomplish the same thing, and we could have extracted a ton of leverage in the process. (For that matter, we could have invaded Venezuela, which has a weaker military and better food.) (3) If all this oil is so valuable, can you tell me how it’s being diverted to our shores without anyone noticing? (4) Why did we spend in excess of $100 billion repairing the country? Seems a funny way to plunder a country, doesn’t it? (5) Why are gas prices so high with this newfound pipeline of Iraqi oil pouring into America’s SUVs?
You may have a point about the national debt, though you make it ineptly, and I disagree with your conclusion.
But as for this “blood for oil” nonsense, you have no argument at all, because there are no facts AND no logic to support it.
5:47 pm
I am 26 years old and a Republican. So its true there are younger Republicans out there. One thing I want to comment on is I praise Bill Ford for trying to clean up the enviroment or at least try to do something for cryin out loud!! Better then not trying to help. Some day we will need to move away from these toxic emissions we pump into the air. Its killing the Earth. Now I know I may sound like a moonbat but this planet has serious enviromental issues that I believe have taken a back burner to other things like the war. Polar ice caps are melting as you read this.
6:05 pm
Air: Never said “Blood for Oil.” Never said (or implied) goods coming in from China was “happy cash.” If you can’t understand the influence a creditor nation has over a debtor nation, well, I’m sure there’s a Jr College right down the street that can help you.
Good night, girls. Gotta go.
6:17 pm
Watseka:
Bill Ford’s job is to make the company profitable. He’s been criticized by both automakers and environmentalists for doing both too much and too litle. And his statement that auto emissions are causing global warming are as dumb as Reagan saying pollution was caused by trees.
One small volcanic eruption puts more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere than anything man has done for the last decade.
As for the polar ice caps, the Antarctica ice sheet is getting bigger.
6:59 pm
Franklin—
Sorry about your untimely exit. Maybe you can share your eminence with us another time, eh? I’ve learned so much today!
I imagine by your next appearance you’ll have Michael Moore’s conspiracy theories down better than you do now.
I’m off to junior college now so I learn not how to make fallacies like: ad hominems, tu quoques, appeals to authority, appeals to emotion, non-sequiturs, invalid syllogisms, bandwagons and question-beggings.
I guess I’m just another poor dumb, linear-thinking rightwing nutjob who can’t put subject and predicate together. Silly me.
7:02 pm
Whooa, Watseka!
See this before you inhale the monkey gas.
Bear in mind that many of us Republicans are sportsmen and frankly, there is no better friend of the environment than someone who hunts and fishes. It really sucks when the acid rain kills all the native browns in the Battenkill, if you know what I mean.
7:05 am
You’d almost think that gay activists and the religious right needed each other.
4:20 pm
naturalism allotment Muscovite bureaucrats knuckle coddle retinal:Ziegfeld exhaustion