There, We Said It
Tag: Homophobia Inc.
O’Reilly in Uproar Over Gay Dumbledore
It was, I suppose, predictable that professional bloviator Bill O’Reilly would get his panties in a twist over author J.K. Rowling’s (yawn) revelation that a character in the Harry Potter novels was gay. Rowling told an audience at Carnegie Hall last week that the headmaster of Hogwarts Academy, Albus Dumbledore, was gay.
Despite the fact that Rowling offended my English major’s sensibilities by telling something outside the novel (“So, Mr. Twain, what career track did Huck follow when he grew up?”), O’Reilly is trying — very hard, apparently — to cast Rowling as a “provocateur” who is pushing “gay indoctrination” by saying a character in her novels is gay, even though he apparently never did anything gay-like in the novels. Here’s Bill at his usual, courtesy of Media Matters:
AFA: We Didn’t Lie And Morningstar Still Hates Christians
Man, Joe Mansueto must have really rattled the Wildmons, American Family Association’s head henchmen, when he responded by e-mail to all the AFA drones who sent him an e-mail through the AFA site criticizing his company for not taking an ad from Faith Financial, as we reported earlier. See, most organizations who are slimed by the Wildmons choose to meet with them privately. Mansueto, chair and CEO of Morningside, chose to take the fight to the public.
Several hours later, the Wildmons are in full spin mode, quoting Faith Financial’s version of what happened as a way to deflect criticism:
‘Based on the fact that Morningstar takes advertisements for liberal social interest groups, it still appears to AFA that the Faith Financial ad was rejected due to it’s Christian content.’
— Tim ‘Wildman Jr.’ Wildmon
— Tim ‘Wildman Jr.’ Wildmon
Faith Financial attempted to amplify its message of values-based investing on a national platform. To that end, it worked with a global ad agency named Come And Stay which suggested using Morningstar.com, one of the largest and most popular investor information resources in the industry. The ad agent worked with Faith Financial to craft an ad that met both the criteria of Faith Financial and Morningstar then submitted an offer/invoice (what is generally considered a contract) to CEO Stephen Bolt of Faith Financial who signed it and sent it back to be presented along with the 80 word text of the ad to Morningstar. Much to the surprise of both the ad agent and Faith Financial, the ad was rejected by Morningstar. Faith Financial Planners was told by the ad agent after he had consulted with Morningstar that ‘Unless you change the message completely and eliminate the Christian undertones…’ the ad will not be accepted.
The ad agent submitted an offer/invoice to CEO Stephen Bolt of Faith Financial who signed it and sent it back to be presented along with the 80 word text of the ad to Morningstar. From Faith Financial’s perspective, the offer/invoice was a binding agreement as is stated in the contract, but Faith Financial recognizes that Morningstar.com never accepted Faith Financial’s ad and thus, Morningstar never signed an agreement with Faith Financial.
Anybody who has ever dealt with advertising knows that signing an insertion order is a contract between the advertiser and the advertising agency, not the publisher. That’s why there’s an agency percentage — for the work and the financial risk. So, there was never a contract between FF and Morningstar — but that’s what Tim Wildmon said. So who’s lying? I’d bet on both Faith Financial and Wildmon. The above was offered by Wildmon by way of explanation.
He then accuses Morningstar of anti-Christian bias while not offering one iota of justification other than to say that because Morningstar rejected the ad, then it is de facto biased. Oh, except for this:
Based on the fact that Morningstar takes advertisements for liberal social interest groups, it still appears to AFA that the Faith Financial ad was rejected due to it’s [sic] Christian content.
I went to the Morningstar site and I had a devil of a time finding an advertisement. And here’s where you can find the advert for Faith Financial.
I went to the Faith Financial Web site and to tell you the truth it looks to me like some kind of Christian multilevel marketing pyramid scheme. Judge for yourself by going here.
I could see how Morningstar, which is one of the largest financial sites in the country that does real analysis and provides real content regarding financial matters might be put off by Faith Financial, which looks kind of questionable.
And last time I checked it is within the rights of a private business to choose to do or refuse to do business with whomever it desires. And if there are consequences to that decision, then so be it. People are free to boycott and demonstrate any business that clearly demonstrates bias, but refusing to play ball with a bunch of flaky Christian scam artists is not against the law.
Unfortunately, neither is lying — with one hand on the Bible — to people to get them to follow your misguided agenda.
AFA Caught in Another Lying Smear Campaign
A couple of days ago I received an e-mail from Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. In typical seething indignation, the missive exhorted me to leap to the condemnation of Morningstar, a provider of financial information, for its refusal to run an ad on its Web site from Faith Financial Planners:
Like any bullies, the Wildmons — pater and son — exaggerate their organization’s power and significance, and wield the threat of economic boycott like a baseball bat when they attack on behalf of Jesus.
We have learned that our friends at Faith Financial Planners were denied a paid advertisement on the website of Morningstar unless they removed the “Christian” content from their advertisement. Morningstar — one of the largest providers of financial information on mutual funds, stocks, and portfolios for individual investors and institutions in the world — told Faith Financial that the company had to “change the message completely and eliminate the Christian undertones.” This is a clear example of bigotry just because Faith Financial represents a Christian message about values and investing. Faith Financial is a company that, through one of its subsidiaries, provides information for Christians to use in reflecting their values in their investments. The information alerts values-based investors to those companies that are involved in pornography, abortion, the homosexual agenda, etc.
But Wildmon wasn’t finished yet:
In an unprecedented move, after a contract had been signed by both parties, an ad sales agent for Morningstar informed Faith Financial that Morningstar had reversed its decision to accept the ad and decided that Faith Financial must censor the “Christian undertones” in order for the ad to be acceptable. American Family Association is asking you to let the leadership at Morningstar know that this kind of Christian bigotry is unacceptable.
I, of course, took action. I like to take the AFA’s stock letter copy and rewrite it to take the polar opposite position. In a perverse way, it relaxes me and is mightily entertaining. Today I received a response to my e-mail from Morningstar Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joe Mansueto:
The AFA’s email alert claimed that Morningstar asked a company called Faith Financial Planners to “eliminate the Christian undertones from their ad,” reneged on a contract, and rejected an advertisement on the basis of anti-Christian bias.
These allegations are false. First and foremost, at no time did Morningstar sign a contract with Faith Financial or any group representing Faith Financial, and no one at Morningstar asked Faith Financial to “eliminate the Christian undertones from their ad.” The AFA is also incorrect in accusing us of bias in our decision not to run the ad in question.
Seems Morningstar had pretty good grounds for not running the ad:
This ad, which was submitted to us by a third-party agency, was a special promotional offer for a free copy of the book “Money on Loan from God.” A variety of companies run these types of promotional offers, which are made available to people who sign up for Premium Membership service on our Web site, Morningstar.com.
To give you a better sense of our internal process, our ad sales team evaluates each ad submission on a case-by-case basis, within our stated advertising guidelines. We have limited sponsorship opportunities available for the special offer area of our Web site and often turn down promotional requests based on a number of factors.
We also frequently turn down ads that we believe make unreasonable or risky promises to investors. The text in this particular ad — “Achieving a double bottom line on your investment, financial and moral!” — raised a red flag with our ad rep. Also, our ad rep was not familiar with the author of the book or the book’s contents.
Taking all of these issues into consideration, as well as our advertising guidelines, our ad rep made the judgment call to turn down the promotional offer for this special area of our site.
So, let’s review the facts, since AFA apparently didn’t: There was no signed contract, Morningstar didn’t ask Faith Financial to change its ad copy, the ad probably violated Morningstar’s ad policy and it wasn’t Faith Financial but a third-party agency that submitted the ad.
This is a familiar approach by American Family Association — trump up some nonexistent instance of alleged bias against Christian values, distort the facts, rouse its base to action and smugly await some hoped-for free media coverage.
The AFA simply practices thuggery in the name of Jesus. Like any bullies, the Wildmons — pater and son — exaggerate their organization’s power and significance, and wield the threat of economic boycott like a baseball bat when they attack, supposedly in defense of Jesus.
Morningstar’s Mansueto did the right thing by showing the AFA for what it is — a gang of lying, bullying Christian fundamentalist extremists.
Update: AFA has compounded its earlier lies with new ones. Read more…
Christian ‘Family’ Group Deploys Sexy Videos in New Fundraising Appeal
Last year, the Mississippi-based American Family Association (AFA) reported a net worth of $32 million, most of which it raised by its relentless message of hatred for gay people.
It’s a win-win. AFA raises millions from the sexy videos, and the burger chains get tons of free promotion among a key customer demo: sexually repressed Christian carnivores.
It’s way too soon to surmise that professional homophobia is losing its financial luster but it is interesting to note that in a recent fundraising email, AFA has turned its sights on a burger chain’s use of sexy women in television ads. The AFA fundraiser says:
CKE Restaurants, Inc. (Hardees/Carl’s Jr.) is hitting new lows in their latest round of television commercials. After offending families with Paris Hilton and Hugh Hefner-driven ads over the past few years, the hamburger chain is taking its history of sleaze marketing to a new level.
One of the latest ads, now on national television, depicts a sexualized female teacher in a high school classroom doing a stripper-style dance on top of her desk, while male students do a rap song about her “flat buns.” [Video above left. – Ed.] (Warning: This ad is offensive and provided only for the purpose of educating our members).
In another ad, a scantly-clad woman gyrates to a countdown of things she wants a man to do to her. All the time, she is eating a “patty melt” sandwich. [Video above right. – Ed.] (Warning: This ad is offensive and provided only for the purpose of educating our members).
Yeah, right! The AFA would never dream of using sexy videos on the internet to raise money. Sending around salacious material like that might offend its members — or about half of the men, at least:
A new survey shows that five of ten Christian men in the U.S. — and two of ten Christian women — are addicted to pornography. The survey was conducted by ChristiaNet.com, an online Christian Internet community.
The AFA email concludes with its money shot:
Thanks for caring enough to get involved. If you find our efforts worthy, would you consider making a donation to help us continue?
Sincerely,
DonDonald E. Wildmon, Founder & Chairman
American Family AssociationP.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends!
It’s easy to dismiss AFA’s actions as silly prudery but even well-funded enterprises like AFA and its competitors in the homophobia industry, which collectively gross over $400 million annually tax free, do not need expensive marketing research to know what any kid in Marketing 101 can tell you: Sex sells.
The bottom line leads to a cynical conclusion: Sending out a fundraising email with links to sexy videos may well be a win-win for both AFA and the fast-food joints. AFA could raise thousands or more in tax-free dollars, and the restaurants will get tons of free publicity among a key customer base: sexually repressed Christian carnivores.
