- Cd Kirven and her son, Trevor
Get Equal Now has sent the American Family Association a cease and desist letter after the anti-gay, right-wing organization called for a boycott of Home Depot.
Last week, AFA called for a boycott of the home improvement retailer because it sponsored several gay Pride events this year and offers domestic partner benefits to its employees.
Cd Kirven, a Dallas resident and co-founder of Get Equal Now, sent AFA president Tim Wildmon the cease and desist letter after speaking to several attorneys.
“In the process of attacking us, you are attacking our children,” Kirven told AFA.
Kirven said she had been formulating the plan for a while.
“When I heard the tea party calling the NAACP racists, I said, ‘Why can’t the LGBT community do that to the AFA or NOM?’” Kirven said.
She had the letter to AFA notarized and sent return receipt requested. Attorneys advised her to wait for a reply or, without a reply, wait a month, monitor the hate speech on their website and then file a lawsuit.
Several attorneys are interested in pursuing the case, according to Kirven. She said the LGBT community has not taken this approach before.
“I believe enough’s enough,” she said. “When you go after my son, I am going to defend him with every last breath.”
Kirven shares custody of her 5-year-old son, Trevor, with a former partner.
“I don’t want to see another kid commit suicide behind the intolerant behavior of AFA,” Kirven said. “NOM is next. The LGBT community is tired of the verbal and financial abuse of those organizations. Some of us don’t make it through the process. It has to stop. If the government won’t take action, Get Equal Now will.”
Kirven said the AFA says the LGBT community is damaging marriage. If that’s the case, she wondered why Massachusetts and Vermont, which both allow same-sex marriage, have two of the lowest divorce rates.
“We’re not damaging marriage. They’re the ones with a 75 percent divorce rate,” she said of heterosexual couples.
Kirven also filed a complaint against AFA with the Justice Department and has contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center about listing them as a hate group. SPLC lists other groups such as the Family Research Institute in Colorado Springs as a hate group for its anti-gay activity.
Kirven is also encouraging people to send letters to Home Depot thanking them for supporting LGBT families. At Pride events, the company offers family-friendly areas where it gives out balloons to the children.
Here’s the text of Get Equal Now’s letter to the AFA:
“Good evening! I’m seriously concerned about the physical welfare of our childre because of your written and verbal harassment of the LGBT Community. One example of your successful intimidation tactics was American Family Association’s Boycott of the Ford Company in 2005 to 2008. Now you are leading an intimidation campaign against Home Depot.
“In protection of our families and our children, I’m serving American Family Association with a cease and desist order. If this intimidating, manipulative and high-pressure tactics do not stop then we will take the responsibility upon ourselves to protect that right by suing your organization for defamation. The constant attacks of the LGBT community and AFA’s fear mongering has to stop. You promote the damage your organization done to my community and those impatc lead to hate crimes, teen suicides and isolation of the LGBT community. This order demands that you stop the verbal abuse of our community on radio, television and in print.”
The letter to Home Depot is posted as a petition online and can be signed by going here.
The AFA needs to add many more to their boycott list. The last time I went to a gay parade here in Houston it was nothing but corporate floats. Bank of America, Exxon, Wells Fargo, Clear broadband, Budweiser, our mayor and city council and tons of political people who are running for office. I remember the days when this group complained about our illegal lifestyle and that we broke the law having tons of promiscuous sex.
NOW the problem they have with us is that we want to settle down and be with one person and have children. So they get upset that a parent takes their child to a parade and a Company hands out balloons. I mean come on…..aren’t there bigger issues they could spend their time on?
Bravo. Bravo. Bravo. I could not say bravo enough. I could not scream it from the rooftops at sufficient volume. I stopped supporting pro-gay groups because none of these groups seemed to want to fight for themselves, and were allowing the anti-gay to trample all over them. It is about time that the anti-gay be fought as savagely and as viciously as they are fighting to take away gay rights. It is unconscionable to me that these people have gay people in their crosshairs and want to destroy their families. My favorite line from the article: “NOM is next.” NOM has been responsible for the destruction of thousands of families in California and Maine, and I could not understand why anyone was allowing them to damage, hate and hurt *defenseless little children*. If this represents someone in America waking the hell up and starting to fight, then I applaud it endlessly. These groups should be fought by every single legal means necessary, and if the government doesn’t have the backbone and the sense to do it for you, then do it for yourselves. I support you all the way.
It would’ve added more credibility to the Cease and Desist order if someone had proofed it or the author had used spell check. Better than nothing, but always know that bad grammar is almost always dismissed by the other side as the ramblings of an uneducated person.
AFA is wrongly accused of hate speech. Here is a statement from AFA’s FAQ section: “Does AFA Hate Homosexuals?
Absolutely Not! The same Holy Bible that calls us to reject sin, calls us to love our neighbor. It is that love that motivates us to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture. AFA has sponsored several events reaching out to homosexuals and letting them know there is love and healing at the Cross of Christ.” At a recent gay-friendly event, Home Depot gave cups and flags which promoted a gay website which proclaims itself as “the men’s social group for men who have sex with men.” In an era rife with STD’s, AIDS, etc., any family-friendly event should do the morally responsible thing and not promote this type of thing to vulnerable children.
Laura: lol! They’re not using hate speech because they said so. Because they’re misquoting the bible. Because they’re addressing what they have labeled the “radical homosexual agenda.”
Of course they’re using hate speech. Unfortunately, hate speech from people like Fred Phelps and the AFA is legal – unless it causes harm. And C.d. might just have a case to prove they’re causing gay kids to kill themselves and she has the motivation and is affected by their hate speech – because she’s protecting her own child.
Honestly I am not sure where to begin. First a little about myself; I was raised in a staunchly religious family, taught that homosexuality was a sin. My parents listened to Focus on the Family on a daily basis, basically a typical southern Baptist upbringing. However I have always formulated my own opinions, and while I still hold firm to my belief in God I don’t agree with a lot of my religious upbringing. I have friends that are gay, and they are not the anti-family, in-your-face people that I was taught they were. Honestly they are some of the kindest, unselfish people I know.
Now to discuss the AFA. I spent a good hour going through their website this afternoon, looking at all the ‘atrocities’ that are being committed by certain businesses. While I find most of their claims laughable at best and insulting at worst, I am very concerned by people who think that threatening lawsuits is the way to handle situations like this. This kind of action threatens the free speech of everyone, not just the nuts at the AFA. The beauty of free speech is that while you have the right to say what you will, I can ignore you at my pleasure. Please understand that the majority of Americans don’t give two hoots what the AFA thinks or does. Look at their 9 year boycott of Disney, sure was effective, wasn’t it?? Don’t support something that will damage the free speech of all of us just to hurt some two –bit, off the wall group.