December 23, 2011
By Rebecca Gladden
Two major sponsors in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series – competing home improvement companies – are currently embroiled in high-profile public controversies involving protests, petitions, and even calls for boycotts.
The companies being targeted are Home Depot and Lowe’s, both home improvement warehouses.
Home Depot currently sponsors Joey Logano in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, but previously sponsored Tony Stewart for more than a decade, including two of the seasons that Stewart won Cup titles.
Lowe’s has been the primary sponsor of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy throughout his Cup career, including his five championship seasons, and will likely continue as his sponsor through 2015.
The more longstanding of the two controversies involves an ongoing battle between Home Depot and the American Family Association (AFA), a group which, among other goals, works to “motivate people to take a stand on cultural and moral issues at the local, state and national levels.”
According to the AFA website, the organization launched a boycott against Home Depot last year after the company, “refused to remain neutral in the culture war.”
On the website Boycott The Home Depot
, the AFA identifies its grievances with Home Depot – primarily in regard to promoting the “homosexual agenda” – and calls for supporters to boycott the company and its stores.
Among the concerns expressed by the AFA is the following: “Rather than remain neutral in the culture war, The Home Depot has chosen to sponsor and participate in numerous gay pride parades and festivals. Most grievous is The Home Depot's deliberately exposing small children to lascivious displays of sexual conduct by homosexuals and cross-dressers, which are a common occurrence at these events.”
The AFA encourages supporters to boycott Home Depot stores, call local store managers and inform them “that you will not be shopping at The Home Depot until the company stops supporting the homosexual agenda,” circulate printed petitions advocating the boycott, and promote the boycott on other websites and blogs.
Earlier this year, representatives of the AFA attended the annual Home Depot shareholders’ meeting in Atlanta and presented petitions containing nearly a half-million signatures to the company’s board of directors and stockholders, urging Home Depot to “remain neutral in the culture war, specifically when it addresses gay marriage and homosexual activist groups.”
After the meeting, AFA spokesman Randy Sharp stated, “We're disappointed that The Home Depot continues to close the door and not listen to the millions of customers who are offended that they are engaging in the culture war and taking a position in favor of gay marriage.”
The AFA’s boycott of Home Depot continues.
In the case of Lowe’s, the controversy is much more recent and is playing out in the heart of NASCAR country. On Tuesday of this week, according to a report on WSOCTV.com, the website of a Charlotte, NC, television station, “religious leaders hand-delivered 200,000 signatures to Lowe's Home Improvement headquarters in Mooresville (NC).”
Lowe’s has been at the center of controversy since a decision earlier this month to pull advertising from the TLC television show, “All-American Muslim.”
The TLC website describes the program as “a powerful series that goes inside the rarely seen world of American Muslims to uncover a unique community struggling to balance faith and nationality in a post 9/11 world.”
Critics of the show argue that it presents a one-sided view of American Muslims, while “ignoring the threat of jihad,” as stated by one group that urged Lowe’s to stop advertising on the show.
While a Lowe’s representative described the decision to cease advertising on “All-American Muslim” as routine, naysayers characterized it as “Islamophobic” and a result of caving to political pressures from groups such as the Florida Family Association (FFA).
The FFA website describes “All-American Muslim” as a “propaganda show” and continues to urge supporters to target current advertisers, including Campbell’s and Hershey’s.
Despite the petitions presented to Lowe’s headquarters on Tuesday, the company will apparently not return as an advertiser on the show.
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