Florida Family Association

The one-man outrage outlet better known as the Florida Family Association is up in arms over a new partnership between Office Depot and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, including a $1 million donation. The FFA, led by David Caton, is demanding that Office Depot rescind the donation since Gaga’s Born This Way message, which isn’t so much a claim about sexuality as a celebration of individuality, is sending an “irresponsible message to many teens who would have eventually chose to be straight.”

“Thousands of kids who might have otherwise worked through their pubescent sexual identity issues will be inspired to accept the wrong choice based upon this unscientific, emotionally charged born this way propaganda,” the FFA writes, “What’s brave or kind about telling thousands of sexually frustrated teens that they were born this way when a high percentage of them would have ended up taking the straight heterosexual path for life?”

Thousands of kids who might have otherwise worked through their pubescent sexual identity issues will be inspired to accept the wrong choice based upon this unscientific, emotionally charged propaganda.

What’s brave or kind about telling thousands of sexually frustrated teens that they were Born This Way when a high percentage of them would have ended up taking the straight heterosexual path for life?

Please urge Office Depot to rescind their one million dollar pledge to Lady Gaga’s Born this Way Foundation.

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Born this Way sends an irresponsible message to many teens who would have eventually chose to be straight. The one million dollar pledge from Office Depot to the Lady Gaga Born this Way Foundation will influence many teens to embrace homosexuality for their lifetime who may have otherwise worked through their crisis with straight results.

GovTeen Network’s Puberty101.com states: “It is normal for teens to experiment with same-sex friends, and does not necessarily mean that you’re gay. Most often, you’re not.” http://puberty101.com/boys/am-i-gay/

There is no scientific evidence that anyone is born this way (gay.) The American Psychiatric Association wrote the following information in a May 2002 article titled "Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Fact Sheet," published on its website Psych.org: "No one knows what causes heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality.’ http://borngay.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=1335

Thousands of kids who might have otherwise worked through their pubescent sexual identity issues will be inspired to accept the wrong choice based upon this unscientific, emotionally charged born this way propaganda.

What’s brave or kind about telling thousands of sexually frustrated teens that they were born this way when a high percentage of them would have ended up taking the straight heterosexual path for life?

I urge Office Depot to rescind their one million dollar pledge to Lady Gaga’s Born this Way Foundation.

My future patronage of Office Depot depends upon your response.

The anti-LGBT Florida Family Association has long attacked Degrassi for trying to have teenagers “embrace and accept the transgender or homosexual lifestyle,” and is now declaring victory for having convinced at least one company to publicly state it will not advertise on the show: Kelloggs. David Caton of the FFA, who says that Degrassi promotes “very bizarre sexual role-playing with transvestism, homosexuality” and “is probably one of the worst shows that we’ve ever seen,” posted an email that appears to come from a Kellogg’s spokesman agreeing to drop advertising on Degrassi, telling Caton that Degrassi does “not meet our criteria” and that “Teen Nick inadvertently placed our advertising” on only one of the show’s episodes.

MTV tried to convince mainstream advertisers that the content of Degrassi presented important teen issues in a responsible manner. However, the super majority of mainstream companies stopped advertising on this show after Florida Family Association repeatedly informed them about the extreme content involving bizarre sexual role playing and drug abuse and overdose of the program.

The interactions of three Degrassi characters demonstrate one faction of the irresponsible content of this show. The transgender female to male character Adam is intimately interested in a bi-sexual female Fiona. However, Fiona is confused as to whether she is lesbian or bi-sexual while she interacts with Riley. Riley is an open homosexual and starting quarterback for the high school football team. The odds of this mix of sordid sexual deviations occurring in any high school at this high social clique level are a million to one. Yet, MTV targets our children and teens on their Teen Nick channel with this garbage numerous times a week and tries to sell it as programming that treats serious teen matters responsibly.

Florida Family Association has issued several email alerts regarding Degrassi over the past two years which have resulted in a large number of companies pulling off the program. The last email campaign identified Nationwide, Hewlett Packard, Verizon and Colgate as new advertisers and encouraged them to stop supporting Degrassi with their advertising dollars. All four companies, Nationwide, Hewlett Packard, Verizon and Colgate, have not advertised in the recent months.

Kellogg's responded to one of many emails the Florida Family Association office sends out to companies each week that advertise during numerous shows.

Dear Mr. Caton,

We appreciate you bringing this recent advertising placement concern to our attention. We have a long standing advertising placement policy which helps ensure that we place our advertising in environments that reflect the positive image of our brands. When applying this standard, we find that many programs, including Degrassi, do not meet our criteria.

After investigating with our advertising agency and Nickelodeon, it appears that Degrassi ran in a different time slot than usual on May 11 and Teen Nick inadvertently placed our advertising on this one episode. We are working with Nickelodeon to tighten their internal processes to avoid mis-placement in the future.

Sincerely,

Joanna K. Grennes
Sr. Director Consumer Communications
Consumer Affairs Department

As is tradition, the Florida Family Association is raising money to hire a plane to fly over Orlando with a banner “to warn families” about “same-sex revelry” at Disney World. The FFA claims that Gay Days at Disney in June, which last year brought approximately 150,000 people to the theme park even though it is not an official Disney event, led to steep declines in attendance as families fear witnessing “thousands of same-sex couples holding hands, hugging, kissing and wearing tee-shirts that promoted their lifestyle.” “Just like activists’ attempts to gain access to youthful minds through LGBT characters in video games,” referring to the group’s fervent protests of Star Wars: The Old Republic for allowing users to enter same-sex relationships, “they also want to impact a captured audience of tens of thousands of children during the first Saturday of Summer Break”:

How would you feel if you entered the Magic Kingdom anticipating a normal day of fun with your family only to witness thousands of same-sex couples holding hands, hugging, kissing and wearing tee-shirts that promoted their lifestyle?

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) activists converge on the Magic Kingdom the first Saturday of every June for an event called Gay Day at Disney.

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Just like activists’ attempts to gain access to youthful minds through LGBT characters in video games they also want to impact a captured audience of tens of thousands of children during the first Saturday of Summer Break.

Last year Florida Family Association hired an aircraft company to pull a banner for ten hours the day before and ten hours the day of to warn families about this offensive event before they arrived at the park on Saturday.

The airplane banner influenced mainstream family attendance at Disney during Gay Day to DROP between 50% to 60%. We believe this aircraft banner warning to families SPARED TENS OF THOUSANDS of children from the unexpected exposure to this coming out party. This airplane banner is the most cost effective manner to warn families before they:

• Expose their children to same-sex revelry.

• Spend hundreds of dollars on tickets.

• Pay for parking.

• Commit a day for fun now ruined.

• Purchase food and novelties.

Back in January, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins railed against video game maker BioWare’s decision to allow “same gender romances with companion characters” in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which Perkins said would lead kids to “be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking.” Now, the Florida Family Association, best known for its pressure campaigns against the television shows All-American Muslim and Degrassi, is warning that “radical homosexual extremists” are going to turn the game into “propaganda” to “capture the minds of our children through the intense emotions children encounter when playing video games,” all with this helpful image of two children staring at gay Stormtroopers:

The group asks parents to contact BioWare “to stop any additions of LGBT characters to Star Wars video games”:

America families grew up with the Star Wars film series that was family fair. The films contained no profanity, no nudity and no sexual situations. It makes no sense that BioWare and Electronic Arts would shatter that family quality in Star Wars video games just to pacify 35 LGBT polling participants and appease radical homosexual extremists. Star Wars video games are for children. An overwhelming percentage of the 1.7 million games sold are being used by children who do not need to be introduced to this propaganda. Please send your email to BioWare's parent company Electronic Arts.

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It makes no sense that BioWare and Electronic Arts would shatter that family quality in Star Wars video games just to pacify 35 LGBT polling participants and appease radical homosexual extremists.

Star Wars video games are for children. An overwhelming percentage of the 1.7 million games sold are being used by children who do not need to be introduced to this propaganda.

Enough is enough with LGBT activists trying to capture the minds of our children through the intense emotions children encounter when playing video games.

Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send that urges officials at BioWare’s parent company Electronic Arts and Lucas Films to stop any additions of LGBT characters to Star Wars video games.

The American Decency Association also announced that it will join the FRC and FFA in protesting BioWare’s move, lamenting that “it seems that ‘the dark side’ is now winning in a battle for the hearts and mind of our children.”

In a new Star Wars video game, it seems that ‘the dark side’ is now winning in a battle for the hearts and mind of our children. Bioware, the company that developed the video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, had firmly stated in 2009 that they would not bow to pressure from homosexual extremists who were demanding that gay and lesbian content be added to the video game then in development. Bioware claimed it was their policy to remain neutral.

Now Bioware has violated its own policy – as well as the values of millions of parents who don’t want their kids indoctrinated with pro-homosexual propaganda. Instead, Bioware has caved to a handful of vitriolic LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender) protesters and is adding a special “same-sex romance” component to the video game.

While the Florida Family Association has won national attention for its successful campaign to convince advertisers like Lowe’s and Kayak to pull their ads from TLC’s All-American Muslim, the reality show about Muslim families living in Michigan was far from the first show the group attacked, as the FFA previously went after programs like Degrassi, Modern Family, Family Guy and Dancing With the Stars, among others.

As Samuel G. Freedman explains in The New York Times, the FFA is the one-man operation of David Caton, who for decades has been using the FFA as a shell organization for his attacks against not only television programs but also public schools, Disney World and government officials. “What makes the attack on ‘All-American Muslim’ more disturbing — and very revealing — is that it was prosecuted by just one person,” Freedman notes, “a person unaffiliated with any established organization on the Christian right, a person who effectively tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry”:

During the mid-1990s, after hearing about the harassment of gay students, the principal of Largo High School in Florida created a support group for them. Over the next year or two, the meetings also drew sympathetic friends, evolving into a club called the Gay Straight Alliance. For a while, it operated in comfortable obscurity.

Then, in 1998, the principal, Barbara Thornton, began receiving postcards, many bearing the identical message bizarrely denouncing the alliance as a “government-funded witch hunt.” The local school board felt compelled to take up the issue, with 400 parents attending a meeting at which one speaker compared the gay students to murderers.

During that session, Ms. Thornton finally encountered the man who had manufactured the entire controversy: David Caton. An accountant turned rock-club owner, the author of a book about his pornography addiction, Mr. Caton had become a born-again Christian and the founder and sole employee of a fundamentalist activist group called the Florida Family Association.

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It would be upsetting enough if a well-financed, well-organized mass campaign had misrepresented a television show, insulted an entire religious community and intimidated a national corporation. What makes the attack on “All-American Muslim” more disturbing — and very revealing — is that it was prosecuted by just one person, a person unaffiliated with any established organization on the Christian right, a person who effectively tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry.

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The question is why anybody, especially a major company like Lowe’s, would be swayed by Mr. Caton’s campaign. (Lowe’s did not respond to several requests for comment.) Just to put him in perspective, the 2010 federal tax forms for the Florida Family Association list Mr. Caton as its only paid employee, earning $55,200. The association took in $172,133 in donations and closed out the calendar year with precisely $8,868.76 on hand.

David Caton of the Florida Family Association appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday where he mostly played the victim over the national controversy that was started by his group’s pressure campaign against advertisers on TLC’s All-American Muslim. He said that his group started the pressure campaign before the show even went on the air because he couldn’t “wait and see” what impact the “propaganda” would have. Upset that the show didn’t conform to his stereotypical beliefs that Muslims in America are extremists and terrorists, Caton criticized the show’s logo and casting because it makes people think that “all Muslims are all American and all Muslims in America are like this”:

Caton: This program was selecting in a manner and not only reflecting a manner, if you go to The Learning Channel and you look at the website and you look at the logo for ‘All-American Muslim’ it has the symbol of Islam in the ‘e,’ in the ‘a’ of ‘American,’ or in the ‘c’ of ‘American,’ the symbol of Islam and the symbol of American. You start watching this program and you realize they’re trying to persuade the public, the general public, that all Muslims are all American and all Muslims in America are like this, and they’re not…. And so it’s propaganda that needs to be called on. It’s the first show of its kind, and so if we had sat back and said ‘let’s wait and see,’ we can’t wait and see any more with this issue, this issue is too critical to the future of our country.

Later in the interview, Caton said that “all of America would rejoice and be doing handstands and high-fives” if Muslims renounced Sharia, or the moral and religious code followed by Muslims, arguing that Sharia “defies and destroys our values system.” He added that people should pray for him to “be in God’s will” and shed “light on darkness”:

Caton: If the core leadership, the Imams, the leadership of Islam in this country, in the mosques, of the mosques of America, were all like some of the people portrayed on this program I think all of America would rejoice and be doing handstands and high-fives because that would be true liberty for us all, they would be liberated from the bondage of Sharia law. But that’s not the case and our concern is one of concern for life and the preservation of life, and Sharia law is the opposite to that…. I can just keep going on with the number of tenants of Sharia law which is inconsistent with American law and which defies and destroys our values system.

Mefferd: Mr. Caton, how can we pray for your organization right now?

Caton: I just hope I would be in God’s will and that I would be continue to be willing to stand where I’m standing if you continue to stand with me and I don’t do anything apart from shedding light on darkness.

As we’ve previously reported All-American Muslim is far from the first show that was in the crosshairs of the Florida Family Association, in fact, just two years ago the FFA went after advertisers on Family Guy:

Family Guy, a Fox network cartoon which airs on Sunday evenings, has turned to denouncing God, mocking the Born Again Experience and embracing perversion to “entertain” viewers.

The March 29th episode of Family Guy denounced God’s existence, mocked the born again experience and embraced perversity. The March 8th episode condoned bestiality, gay orgies and gross perversion. A more detailed description of the content of both episodes is provided at floridafamily.org because the content is too disgusting to print.

Florida Family Association launched an email campaign on March 31st that asked supporters to send emails to the following Family Guy advertisers: Sprint-Nextel (Boost Mobile), Unilever (Axe), Brinker International (Chili’s Grill), KIA (Spectra), Yum Brands (Taco Bell), Volkswagen, Ford (Southern Ford Dealers), Amscot and Pepsi (Mountain Dew.)

The group has also attacked Modern Family, Dancing With the Stars, and Degrassi for positively portraying the LGBT community.

WorldNetDaily reported that the American Family Association joined the FFA’s efforts to protest Family Guy over the show’s flatulence:

"We have prepared an e-mail for you to conveniently send by the press of one button that will encourage the CEOs and VPs of all of these companies to stop supporting Family Guy with their advertising dollars," the family group said.

The organization said the March 29 episode further featured the character Stewie trying to beam the "Star Trek" cast into his home. But failing, the character instead beams "four semi nude dominatrixes with their all nude and bound male prey into [the home]."

Stewie also "pulls his pants down and passes gas into the air hose of his father’s diving apparatus," the group said.

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"This should be disturbing to a lot of American families," said AFA spokesman Randy Sharp.

"It's beyond me how a network finds humor in the deviancy of human nature," he continued. "The writers of this program, you really have to question who are these people who come up with this and call it entertainment."

The group has also attacked Modern Family, Dancing With the Stars and Degrassi for positively portraying the LGBT community.

After Lowe’s capitulated to the calls from the Florida Family Association to withdraw its ads from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim, the home improvement company immediately faced a hostile response from consumers not driven by unremitting anti-Muslim bigotry. The Florida Family Association launched its pressure campaign against All-American Muslim advertisers by citing the articles of anti-Muslim activists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who claim that the show misrepresents the Muslim community because it doesn’t match their stereotypes of Muslims as anti-American terrorists. Spencer demanded TLC create a show about a secular Muslim who becomes a terrorist and Geller claimed that the “program is an attempt to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad” because the people in the show aren’t terrorists, and smeared Think Progress reporter as a “Dhimmi Jew” for defending TLC.

While siding with the likes of Spencer and Geller is bad enough, the Florida Family Assocation has a long history of not only attacking Muslims but also President Obama, entertainment companies and the LGBT community:

• The FFA created a highly-edited video that tries to make President Obama appear to be Muslim and derided the “extraordinarily strong bond that President Barack Obama has with Islam.”

• The group went after Campbell’s soup for boosting the “advancement of Islam and Sharia law in the United States” because the company made halal soups and sponsored a conference held by a Canadian Muslim relief organization.

• Predicting that “Islam will not sweep into America overnight though it could under the current president” as the “Islamization of America will most likely happen city by city,” the FFA launched a website to combat the purported “Islamization” of Tampa, warning that “Tampa is headed toward embracing Islam.”

• The FFA also waged a campaign against Modern Family, bragging that they convinced “107 companies to stop advertising during the ABC show Modern Family after the advertisers received thousands of emails from Florida Family Association supporters. Florida Family Association objects to Modern Family because the show labels a same-sex couple with an adopted child as a modern family and attempts to normalize homosexuality by contrasting it with heterosexual couples that the show characterizes as abnormal.”

• The organization attacked advertisers on Degrassi because the teen show included a gay, bisexual and transgender characters, calling it “salacious and irresponsible propaganda,” and also criticized Degrassi for promoting The Trevor Project, an anti-suicide group that specifically focuses on at-risk LGBT youth. “Degrassi’s targeting of children and teens with homosexual and transgender content and promotions which encourage kids to call homosexual hotlines is irresponsible,” the group wrote.

• Unsurprisingly, the FFA went after Chaz Bono’s appearance on Dancing With The Stars, saying “Chaz’s appearance on this show looks like nothing more than social engineering to mainstream extreme parts of the homosexual agenda.”

• The group helped pass a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a ban on same-sex parents adopting children, and claimed to have sent state legislators “over 10,000 emails opposing Domestic Partnerships and legislation that promotes the homosexual lifestyle,” including legislation that would bar discrimination against people due to their sexual orientation.

• The FFA also regularly protests Gay Day at Disney World for “offending unsuspecting families,” even contracting a plane to fly over Disney with a seven foot banner reading, “WARNING GAY PRIDE DAY@DISNEY 2DAY.” They even campaigned against the AARP for starting a program aimed at older gays and lesbians, saying it promotes “special rights for immoral behavior.”

• Herman Cain seems to believe that the number "45" holds specific significance for his life.

 

• The media finally notices that Michele Bachamnn has a tendency to just make things up.

 

• On a related note, Bachmann's campaign is so dysfunctional that staffers have to publicly release letters announcing that they have quit her campaign.

 

• Rick Joyner does not seem particularly enamored with any of the GOP candidates.

 

• The Florida Family Association is going after Target for advertising on a show on a channel that also airs ads for The Trevor Helpline, which seeks to prevent suicides among gay youth. Seriously.

 

• Finally, Bryan Fischer interviews Kirk Cameron.  You are welcome.