What Would Jesus Boycott?

Conservative Christian Groups Apply Economic Pressure on Gay-Friendly Firms

from Religion News Service

As more companies adopt gay-friendly business policies, they risk the wrath of conservative Christian groups prepared to take action with their collective buying power.

"People are willing to fight back with their pocketbooks," said Tim Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association (AFA), a conservative group that has boycotted such companies.

Liberal and moderate religious groups have long used economic pressure to leverage what they consider social justice.

A four-year boycott of Taco Bell, led by mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations, ended in early March after the company agreed to raise pay for tomato pickers in Florida.

And during the past year, some of those same churches - led by the Presbyterian Church - have considered withdrawing millions of dollars in investments from Israeli companies to protest that country's treatment of Palestinians.

Now Christian conservative organizations like AFA are employing some of those same tactics to target companies for practices that don't align with their values and beliefs, especially gay rights. And they say they're just getting started.

"The companies that are aggressively promoting the homosexual agenda, we are going to highlight," Wildmon said.

Wildmon said boycotts are used only in cases they consider egregious. As examples, he mentioned donating money to gay rights parades and groups like Human Rights Campaign or buying advertising during the television shows Will and Grace or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or in gay magazines like Out.

Wildmon said AFA may launch a boycott against Kraft Foods because of the company's support of the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. "If most people knew Kraft sponsored the Gay Games, they probably wouldn't buy their macaroni and cheese anymore," Wildmon said. The decision to boycott Kraft, said Wildmon, will depend on whether the company agrees to never sponsor the games again.

Economic efforts by religious conservatives have had mixed results. In 1997, the country's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, launched a boycott of the Walt Disney Co., in part for festivities at its theme parks reaching out to gays. In June, that boycott was lifted. Critics of the boycott said it failed because Disney has not changed its position on gays. But Southern Baptist leaders argued the boycott contributed to financial troubles at Disney and an increasing receptivity to their values. They cited Disney's upcoming film of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia as an example of positive change.

Religious conservatives say other cases of economic pressure have been at least partially effective:

* Microsoft received harsh criticism and boycott threats from an area evangelical minister earlier this year after it voiced support for legislation that would outlaw workplace discrimination against gays in the company's home state of Washington. Microsoft pulled back its support for the bill, then returned to its original position after feeling pressure from gay-rights activists inside and outside the company.

* In September 2004, conservative Christian groups including the AFA and Focus on the Family asked supporters to suspend purchases of Procter & Gamble's Tide laundry detergent and Crest toothpaste after the company donated $10,000 to a campaign to repeal a Cincinnati ordinance barring the enactment of gay-rights laws. The boycott was dropped in April because AFA said P&G was "backing off its support for the homosexual agenda."

* The AFA launched a boycott against Ford Motor Company on May 31 because of the company's support of gay marriage, according to Wildmon. After meeting with a group of Ford dealers one week later, AFA agreed to suspend its effort until at least Dec. 1.

Companies are being forced to consider complicated and charged issues surrounding such threats, according to Bradley Googins, executive director of the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College.

"Now a company has to weigh who is going to be putting pressure and how to calculate impact," Googins said.