Back in August, Liberty Counsel and other Religious Right organizations were incensed when LGBT rights advocates called on companies to drop out of the Charity Give Back Group because the CGBG was directing proceeds to anti-gay organizations such as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and Liberty Counsel. Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel’s Director of Cultural Affairs, said that activists leading the pressure campaign wanted to put conservatives “behind bars” and were “using economic terrorism.” Such remarks were especially ironic at the time since Liberty Counsel led similar pressure campaigns against schools that permit the Day of Silence, McDonalds and Starbucks.
Today, in an interview with the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, Liberty Counsel attorney Matt Krause praised the decision by Lowe’s to cave in to a pressure campaign by the far-right Florida Family Association to pull its advertisements from All-American Muslim. The FFA pressured advertisers by complaining that the show was portraying Muslims as regular Americans rather than showing stereotypical Muslim terrorists. Krause commended Lowe’s for agreeing with the FFA that the show did not “genuinely reflect the values of its customers”:
A Christian legal group applauds Lowe’s for standing by its decision to pull advertisements from a show on Muslims living in America. The North Carolina-based Charlotte Observer reports that Lowe’s will not change its decision to pull commercials from TLC’s All-American Muslim. The decision came after the Florida Family Association and the American Decency Association requested that constituents e-mail the show’s advertisers because of the program’s failure to present the lives of radical Islamic believers truthfully. The company has stood firm on its move, even after Muslim groups launched their own petition drive.
“We applaud Lowe’s for taking the steps that they think [are] correct by pulling the advertising,” says Matt Krause, litigation counsel for Liberty Counsel. “And if they don’t feel that the show or the contents of the show genuinely reflect the values of its customers, then we say that that’s terrific that they’re standing by their decision.”
So just to be clear, Liberty Counsel believes that when gay rights advocates ask businesses to drop out of the politically-geared CGBG, it is “economic terrorism.” But when a fringe anti-Muslim group demands companies refuse to advertise on All-American Muslim just due to the fact that it is a reality show about Muslim-Americans, it is a “terrific” act that is worthy of applause.
