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Gay Automotive Website Takes on BMW

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 30, 2006
Gaywheels.com is lambasting BMW of North America as hypocritical, pointing out that the automaker targets gays and lesbians with advertising but does not offer domestic-partner benefits to its gay and lesbian employees.

"Many of you saw the most recent issue of either OUT or The Advocate," Gaywheels.com editors write on their Website. "If not, you missed a hot, two-page advertisement for the all-new BMW Z4 M Roadster—arguably one of the sexiest ragtops on American pavement."

"We are not talking about the fact that the ad -- which lacks both GLBT-specific text and photography -- does not speak loudly and proudly to its target audience," Gaywheels editors wrote. "The issue is that BMW advertises its products in the gay press, yet it is not a gay-friendly company," thewriters complain.

A BMW spokeswoman admitted that the automaker, in an effort to stay in line with New Jersey laws, does not offer domestic-partner benefits to any employees.

Ford Motor Co. has had an ongoing struggle with anti-gay groups. A coalition of 19 groups led by the American Family Association says it is launching a yearlong boycott because of the automaker's supposed support of homosexual causes and its ads in gay-oriented publications.

Gaywheels.com is owned by Targeted Diversity Marketing with a stated goal to be the "gay-friendly automotive resource." The Website first appeared on the Internet in June of 2005.

The site promises to "only do business with companies and advertisers that offer domestic-partner benefits to their employees. As a result, any time you link to a Gaywheels.com partner or advertiser, you will have the peace of mind of knowing that they are gay-friendly," Gaywheels.com promises.

"We say to the executives at BMW," Gaywheels editors wrote, "We love your cars but not your policies. Please don't advertise to us if you can't treat us equally."

Using domestic-partner benefit programs as a criterion, Gaywheels.com lists roughly 30 gay-friendly and nine non-gay friendly automotive brands. Seven additional brands are listed as still under investigation by the Website.

Gay and lesbian buying power is projected to reach $641 billion this year, according to some estimates.

Last year, the gay-rights organization Human Rights Campaign published a buyer's guide that scores brands based on corporate staffing policies. Visitors to the Human Rights Campaign Website downloaded 200,000 of the guides during the first two weeks that they were available.

Gaywheels.com insists they are not setting out to start a boycott of BMW simply want "to arm our readers with awareness of the company's actions as well as of those of the media outlets that published the ad."

The Website also takes a swing at the magazines publishing the offending BMW ad.

"One would hope that the publishers of GLBT-owned magazines and web sites would have higher standards than to accept advertising from a major, multinational corporation whose policies discriminate against the very audience that those publications were created to serve."

All of the criticism and harsh words aside, the editors at Gaywheels.com concede that the BMW advertisement "makes us yearn for some hard-driving, top-down motoring."

Gay-friendly brands, according to Gaywheels.com:

Lamborghini

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