Sunday, July 31, 2005
The Funniest Thing I Read in the Sunday Paper...
...and it wasn't even on the comics page.
I believe the key trait of a fanatic is that they don't get that others don't get their point of view. Who cares about such things as the soft sell and appropriate language? Their message will win people over regardless! Some previously-blogged examples of this would include the PETA comic book, Your Mommy Kills Animals and Tony Perkins's editorial in the Washington Post asking, "What's so bad about Biblical law?"
Now comes an editorial straight from the head of "Special Projects" for the American Family Association. See, today, the Boston Globe ran two editorials on the matter of boycotts: one on tomato farmers, and the other on not giving money to companies that support gay rights.
In fact, you can tell from the heading that this editorial is a tragic misfire: "Targeting gay rights." Doesn't this sound like an article that Mike Signorile or Dan Savage would write? But instead, it's written by the guy who's actually targeting gay rights. I mean, couldn't you at least refer to them as "homosexual privileges" or something?
The rest of the article... well, I'll let it speak for itself:
When the results came in, we discovered that Sears and Roebuck topped the list of advertisers who sponsored offensive programming. So Wildmon announced that he and his congregants in Tupelo, Miss., would boycott Sears. The media got hold of it, and Sears realized it had a public relations problem on its hands. Wildmon led a protest march in front of Sears Tower in Chicago, and within hours Sears announced it was changing its sponsorship of several questionable programs (I remember ''Three's Company" was one of them.)
"See? We had power in the '70s! And we've been targeting anything vaguely gay since that time!"
Nowadays, the Internet makes it easy for any group to organize a boycott. At any given time, probably every company in America has somebody boycotting it. But there's still power in numbers, and our organization, in concert with other conservative groups, can still generate an enormous number of complaints--anywhere from 100,000 to one million. When that happens, corporations pay attention.
Yes, by either a) ignoring them, b) going over to their point of view, but then flipping back to supporting gays after being hit with a bigger boycott, or c) resulting in the company openly supporting its gay employees. I mean, at least us queers have Cracker Barrel in the win column.
Since Sears, we've boycotted Disney to protest their Gay Days and Procter & Gamble for contributing to a campaign in support of homosexual rights, which we believe would lead to an endorsement of gay marriage.
Hmm, I wonder... how did that boycott against Disney end up again?
Oh, and if you read through the article, you'll find that not in one place does Sharp explain why all this gay stuff is so bad. Sure, there's the thing at the front that strikes up an almost tangential connection to sex and violence, but otherwise, he's basically saying, "It's just bad, okay?"
I'm sure this will win the hearts and minds of Bostonians everywhere.
I believe the key trait of a fanatic is that they don't get that others don't get their point of view. Who cares about such things as the soft sell and appropriate language? Their message will win people over regardless! Some previously-blogged examples of this would include the PETA comic book, Your Mommy Kills Animals and Tony Perkins's editorial in the Washington Post asking, "What's so bad about Biblical law?"
Now comes an editorial straight from the head of "Special Projects" for the American Family Association. See, today, the Boston Globe ran two editorials on the matter of boycotts: one on tomato farmers, and the other on not giving money to companies that support gay rights.
In fact, you can tell from the heading that this editorial is a tragic misfire: "Targeting gay rights." Doesn't this sound like an article that Mike Signorile or Dan Savage would write? But instead, it's written by the guy who's actually targeting gay rights. I mean, couldn't you at least refer to them as "homosexual privileges" or something?
The rest of the article... well, I'll let it speak for itself:
When the results came in, we discovered that Sears and Roebuck topped the list of advertisers who sponsored offensive programming. So Wildmon announced that he and his congregants in Tupelo, Miss., would boycott Sears. The media got hold of it, and Sears realized it had a public relations problem on its hands. Wildmon led a protest march in front of Sears Tower in Chicago, and within hours Sears announced it was changing its sponsorship of several questionable programs (I remember ''Three's Company" was one of them.)
"See? We had power in the '70s! And we've been targeting anything vaguely gay since that time!"
Nowadays, the Internet makes it easy for any group to organize a boycott. At any given time, probably every company in America has somebody boycotting it. But there's still power in numbers, and our organization, in concert with other conservative groups, can still generate an enormous number of complaints--anywhere from 100,000 to one million. When that happens, corporations pay attention.
Yes, by either a) ignoring them, b) going over to their point of view, but then flipping back to supporting gays after being hit with a bigger boycott, or c) resulting in the company openly supporting its gay employees. I mean, at least us queers have Cracker Barrel in the win column.
Since Sears, we've boycotted Disney to protest their Gay Days and Procter & Gamble for contributing to a campaign in support of homosexual rights, which we believe would lead to an endorsement of gay marriage.
Hmm, I wonder... how did that boycott against Disney end up again?
Oh, and if you read through the article, you'll find that not in one place does Sharp explain why all this gay stuff is so bad. Sure, there's the thing at the front that strikes up an almost tangential connection to sex and violence, but otherwise, he's basically saying, "It's just bad, okay?"
I'm sure this will win the hearts and minds of Bostonians everywhere.
