Ford backs off gay ads, family group claims
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 | 1:20 PM ET
CBC News
U.S. carmaker Ford Motor Co. has bent to the will of the American Family Association, which boycotted its products for two years because the company advertised in gay publications and supported gay rights, the association said on its website.
The boycott, joined by 780,365 people, was lifted because Ford met the terms of an agreement calling for the company to stop backing gay organizations and "cease all advertising on homosexual websites and through homosexual media outlets," except for $100,000 US in Volvo ads, the website said.
But in a statement Tuesday, Ford said it cut all charitable spending and advertising in recent years because of its losses, which it recently reported as totalling more than $15 billion US in the past two years.
The company said its principles haven't changed.
According to the Corporate Equality Index published by the group Human Rights Campaign, which works for the rights of gays, Ford received a top ranking in 2007, for the fourth year in a row.
It got 100 per cent on the basis of its treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors, the campaign's website said.
An "unprecedented" 195 major U.S. businesses got the top rating, up from 138 last year and 13 when the index began in 2002, it said.
