• NY Times, Thursday, December 15, 2005 12:15 PM

Ford Motor Co., is anxious to repair the damage done by an embarrassing public relations fiasco. Not only is the giant automaker reversing its recent controversial decision to decrease its advertising in publications that target gays and lesbians, now it says it will actually increase its ad commitment to such magazines. The plan calls for Ford to buy ads for all eight of its brands in gay publications; previously only Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo ran ads in such titles. Now, the company will advertise its Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda and Aston Martin brands in the gay press.

The move was praised by gay advocacy organizations, who had asked Ford to distance itself from the American Family Association, a conservative religious group that had called for a boycott of Ford's products because of the company's support of gay causes. The carmaker's initial decision seemed to bend to that pressure and puzzled many observers because it has long sponsored gay rights groups and provided the same health care benefits to homosexual couples as it does to heterosexuals.

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