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Anti-Gay Group Renews Ford Boycott Threat

December 17, 2005

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The conservative American Family Association has fired back at the Ford Motor Co. saying it is considering a renewed boycott of Ford products after the automaker said it would resume advertising in gay and lesbian publications.

The AFA, based in Tupelo, Miss., called off an earlier boycott after the group thought it had negotiated an agreement with the automaker to end the ads.

"The option of a boycott is now very much alive," Chairman Donald Wildmon said in a statement from AFA headquarters in Mississippi. "We had an agreement with Ford, worked out in good faith," He said. "Unfortunately, some Ford Motor Co. officials made the decision to violate the good-faith agreement."

The statement came after a Ford decision announced Dec. 14, that it would run an expanded corporate advertising campaign in some gay and lesbian publications in 2006.

The announcement followed by two days a meeting between Ford executives and advocates for gays and lesbians in Washington. The gay coalition members were angry at the decision a week earlier by Jaguar and Land Rover, brands owned by Ford, to stop advertising in gay and lesbian magazines.

Ford said that the change in advertising strategy was based solely on cost-cutting efforts and was not part of a agreement with the AFA. But the move coincided with an announcement from the AFA that it was dropping its threatened boycott against Ford after dealers had helped arrange meetings with officials from the automaker.

Last spring, the AFA threatened the boycott in response to "Ford's support for the homosexual agenda and homosexual marriage." Under pressure from some dealers who feared sales would suffer, Ford agreed to discuss the matter with the AFA.

Neither representatives of the gay rights community nor the Ford had a response to this latest threat of a renewed boycott.

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