The Triangle Foundation of Michigan, a statewide civil rights advocacy organization for gay, bisexual, and transgendered people, has found a link between Republican Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and a right-wing boycott of Ford Motor Company by the American Family Association (AFA) over the company’s perceived support of the “homosexual agenda.” The AFA—supported through prominent right-wing foundations—has waged a campaign to boycott Ford due it the perception that it has done “the most to promote the homosexual lifestyle” of any large corporation. Through Betsy DeVos, Dick DeVos is linked to a campaign to economically harm Ford even as he campaigns on a platform of creating jobs and sustaining Michigan’s economy. The Triangle Foundation place his family’s support of the AFA boycott within the context of a statement by DeVos that he is not sympathetic to the trouble faced by the automobile industry. According to the Triangle Foundation, DeVos told the Grand Rapids Press in 1993 that the auto industry should “should stop crying and do something about (their lack of market share). I'm not very sympathetic with the auto industry because some of their problems are self-inflicted.”

The link to the right-wing boycott of Ford comes through DeVos’ wife—Betsy—who is the daughter of Edgar and Elsa Prince of Holland—a wealthy conservative family that has given millions of dollars to religious right causes through the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. Through a $10,000 grant given to the American Family Association for “continuing support,” the family of Betsy DeVos is using its wealth to target one of the state’s largest companies, according to the Triangle Foundation. The American Family Association has organized a boycott of Ford for its funding of groups that “promote homosexual marriage” and running advertisements in the gay press. The group’s Boycott Ford website for the campaign also cites Ford’s 100% rating in Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, Ford’s placement on DiversityInc’s annual “Top 50 Companies for Diversity,” Ford’s recruitment of gay employees by posting on gay job websites, and Ford’s marketing towards gays and lesbians as further reasons to boycott the company. Additional research by Media Mouse found that the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation gave the American Family Association a $5,000 dollar grant in 2005, while another local religious right foundation—the Jack and Mary DeWitt Foundation—gave the group $1,000 in 2004. The Triangle Foundation further pointed out that this is not the only time that the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation funded anti-LGBT efforts and organizations. In 1997, the Prince family contributed money for a new Washington DC headquarters for the Family Research Council and the Promise Keepers both of whom are strongly against homosexuality. The Prince and DeVos family also contributed a combined total of $125,000 to the successful Proposal 2 campaign in Michigan to ban same-sex marriage.

Sean Kosofsky, Director of Policy for the Triangle Foundation, described the AFA as “a radical religious extremist organization that boycotts anyone that doesn't fit their narrow fundamentalist agenda.” The aforementioned description is reasonably accurate, with AFA describing itself as “front-line troops in the culture wars” while actively “promoting the centrality of God in American life” and “promoting the Christian ethic of decency” as part of its campaigns to protect “traditional family values.” The group has organized around a variety of issues since its founding in 1977 including television, the separation of church and state, pornography, “the homosexual agenda,” premarital sex, legal abortion, the National Endowment for the Arts, gambling, unfiltered internet access in libraries, and the removal of school-sponsored religious worship from public schools. The group has made extensive use of boycotts against television shows (Ellen, Cheers, NYPD Blue, and more) and businesses that promote and profit from what it deems “indecency.” Some of the more notable targets have included Ford Motor Company and American Airlines for their policy of providing domestic partner benefits, K-Mart for selling music with parental advisory stickers, Disney for its “attack on American families” through its annual “Gay Day” celebration and domestic partner benefits, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In recent years, the group has boycotted Movie Gallery for renting pornography (charging that the chain is putting its employees at risk for STDs and assaults from gay people), removing “glossy garbage” magazines from supermarket shelves that are packed with “lascivious cover photos and salacious headlines,” and placing the official motto of the United States “In God We Trust” on the wall of every classroom in the United States. The group’s boycotts and organizing efforts are aggressively promoted through its “AFA Report” radio show that airs on some 1,200 radio stations across the United States, its broadcast ministry American Family Radio (AFR) that owns 200 stations in 27 states, videos, websites, and media appearances.

The Director of the Michigan affiliate of the American Family Association, Gary Glenn, has received considerable attention in recent years for his attacks on gays and lesbians. Glenn has opposed anti-discrimination policies of several Michigan cities by asserting that if passed, public bathrooms and showers would become co-ed. After the legislation passed in several towns, Glenn organized petitions to overturn the legislation, asserting that gays and lesbians pose a “public health hazard.” He has further criticized homosexuality stating in a 2001 press release that “Under homosexual activists' political agenda, our children would face a future in which traditional marriage and families have been legally devalued, while state government -- despite the severe threat it poses to personal and public health -- not only legally endorses but uses our tax dollars to subsidize deadly homosexual behavior.” Glenn also has expressed satisfaction when gay men are arrested having sex in public and further stated that according to his “files,” “in almost every case… public school employees” are involved in such acts. As recently as 2004, Glenn argued that “homosexual activity among men remains the single biggest cause of AIDS infection” despite numerous studies to the contrary. Glenn organized in favor of filters in libraries, arguing that with pornography on the Internet, libraries are “the most dangerous place for a child today.”