The American Family Association (AFA), one of the nation’s most obsessed anti-gay crusaders, launched a boycott of The Home Depot a week ago today because the home improvement and construction retailer “promotes the homosexual agenda.” Rather than “remain neutral in the culture war,” AFA wrote, “The Home Depot has chosen to sponsor and participate in numerous gay pride parades and festivals.”
That alone wouldn’t be an earth-shaking accusation; plenty of major corporations, including Home Depot, sponsor gay pride events. But AFA’s announcement strongly implies – with clever wording and misleading “evidence” – that the home-improvement retailer is helping gay sexual predators stalk children.
A letter posted on AFA’s website and signed by its president, Tim Wildmon, declares that a photograph “taken during recent homosexual events sponsored by The Home Depot show(s) children being encouraged to visit gay sex websites.” In the photo, children presumably attending the Southern Maine Pride Festival and parade in June, are seen holding orange Home Depot cups with small red-and-white flags stuck in them. The AFA caption reads, “The flags in these Home Depot cups promote a gay website which proclaims itself as ‘the men’s social group for men who have sex with men.’” The caption goes on, “The cups were given to children by The Home Depot gay parade marchers, while homosexual activists followed up by introducing them to gay sex websites.”
Read carefully, AFA’s post never accuses Home Depot of having anything to do with the flags. But AFA nevertheless concludes, “The Home Depot has no problem aligning itself with gay activist groups who target children with a pro-homosexual message.” The impression is inescapable: Home Depot pals around with lustful gay activists as they recklessly invite kids to visit a gay porn site.
But what about those mysterious flags? The writing on the flags can’t be read in the photo, and AFA conveniently never identifies the offending website — and for good reason, as it turns out.
The flags, Hatewatch has learned, were distributed by an Augusta, Maine, group called Just Guys, which provides safe sex counseling, HIV testing, social support and other resources for gay men. Its meetings are on the calendar of MaineGeneral Health, Maine’s third-largest health care system. And just for good measure, the front page of justguys.info prominently displays a warning:
“This website contains HIV/STD prevention messages that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Since HIV infection and Sexually Transmitted Diseases are spread primarily through sexual practices or by sharing needles, prevention messages and programs may address these topics. If you are not seeking such information or may be offended by such materials, this website may contain pages which you may not wish to visit. Thank you.”
Not exactly the hallmarks of drooling pederasts.
Just Guys director Lew Alessio acknowledged that his organization distributed the flags at the southern Maine festival. The message on the flags said simply, “Gay Pride, Safe Pride,” and then the web address – the promotional phrase AFA cited wasn’t on them. The obvious conclusion: AFA representatives went to the website to find the promotional phrase — and thus knew perfectly well that justguys.info is not a “gay sex website,” and that it doesn’t target children in any way.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/07/28/religious-right-group-slurs-home-depot-in-anti-gay-attack/Aside from being the very definition of homophobia, Don Wildmon is on record making antisemitic remarks.
They need to declare the AFA to be a hate group, because if acknowledging that gay people actually exist is enough to get you boycotted, and if that can't be considered hate, then I don't know what can be considered that then.
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