More comedy gold from the AFA
As I believe I've mentioned, I'm subscribed to the newsletter of the American Family Association. Their latest trip is to claim that the continuing drop in sales at Ford -- a troubled company with a history of poor quality control, lacklustre design, and incompetent management -- is happening mainly because they support the "homosexual agenda", and the AFA is thus boycotting them. Read on:
Sales of all Ford Motor Company automobiles fell 19.1% in July, compared to a year ago. Since AFA began a boycott of Ford in March 2006, sales have dropped in 15 of the 17 months. While the boycott isn't totally responsible for the drop in sales, it has played a major role.
According to Ford's own press releases, here is the last 8 years of sales data for July:
| Year | Sales | %change |
| 2000 | 347,331 | 1% |
| 2001 | 303,043 | -13% |
| 2002 | 319,975 | 2% |
| 2003 | 297,265 | -7% |
| 2004 | 285,204 | -4% |
| 2005 | 366,548 | 29% |
| 2006 | 241,339 | -34% |
| 2007 | 195,245 | 19% |
Contrary to the AFA's claims, their boycott (which began in 2006) did not even manage to increase the rate of decline above the trend of the last decade. It's really, really hard to parlay that into "a major role". But the AFA, as usual, is not content with merely grossly distorting the truth, but has to go for the crazy:
Despite the drastic drop in sales, not a single homosexual group has come to Ford's defense nor publicly encouraged homosexuals to purchase Ford automobiles. AFA asked Ford to take a stand similar to that of Wal-Mart, which will not support or oppose controversial issues. Ford declined, choosing to continue financially supporting the homosexual movement.
So the lack of any sort of homosexual interest in Ford doesn't prove that there is no gay agenda subverting the all-American car company -- it proves that there is a gay agenda, but gays are disloyal backstabbers. These AFA guys may be crazy, but you've got to hand it to them: they're masters of PR (it's sort of a survival skill when the main tenets of your religion involve persuading people that various natural, fun behaviours are dirty and wrong).
So meanwhile, cheers to Ford for not being as bigoted as Wal-Mart. Maybe if you stop making shitty cars, people -- gay and straight alike -- will start buying them again.
