Several more facts need to be addressed regarding the story of gay rights billboards being rejected in Georgia, previously pointed out by TMV here.
1) The company in question owns nearly every billboard in the state [This was written in the Gay Orbit post, but was not found in the article linked. For the purposes of the post, I assume it’s true–David]
2) The company justified its decision because
“We just didn’t feel the copy was right for those markets. These are the markets we do business in, and I know the community standards of these markets.”
Both of these facts lend a new dimension to this case. We might start by noting that LOA is a private company that presumably has every right to decide what messages it wants to send. Indeed, if it wanted to, LOA could tomorrow decide to devote its entire business model to advertising sandwich shops–refusing advertisements from any other source. It would be stupid business, but I don’t think anybody thinks it would be morally suspect.
Steeped up against that is the fact that LOA apparently has a monopoly on billboard advertising. Hence, if LOA will not let a particular group advertise on its billboards, that group will be effectively barred from advertising on any billboard in the state of Georgia–significantly cramping the ability to get their message out. Of course, one might argue, the gay rights group can still (maybe) advertise on TV or radio, among other places. But this won’t necessarily reach the same group of people as highway billboards (people who don’t own TVs, or consciously avoid “liberal” stations which would carry such an ad). Billboards are unique amongst advertising opportunities in that they exist in the public fora, and thus are not as deliberately avoidable as other forms of public persuasion. As more and more of our information sources become self-selected and overtly partisan, opportunities to hit an audience that is not actively seeking your message out become more and more rare (see Cass R. Sunstein’s superb “Republic.com” for more on this).
More importantly, however, is the justification for LOA’s decision. It seems there could be two. The first is that LOA is simply anti-gay. That is, this decision is a conscious political choice by the company to stand in opposition to gay rights. That would be relatively easy to condemn–LOA is bigoted, we don’t like bigots, therefore, LOA is wrong.
The second, and the justification they proffer, however, is different. It is that the market they operate in wouldn’t tolerate such a message, and that LOA is simply responding to a prejudiced environment–which in theory has nothing to do with holding the prejudice themselves. This is simply a direct result of the free market environment. Weighing the benefits of running the ad (money, plus whatever goodwill they gain in the liberal and homosexual community) versus the costs (the ire and possible economic retaliation from conservatives and homophobes), they decided that the market they operate in makes running the Equality ad an economically bad decision. Even if homophobia was entirely not a factor at LOA, their decision would be identical–since it responds to the prevailing norms in society, not in the company.
This sort of dynamic is not new. Anti-gay activists have long made economic retaliation against patron companies a linchpin of their campaign (Disney World, Ford, and P&G are three prominent examples). It is also a well-run story in the south–where racist whites could resist voluntary desegregation by refusing to patronize desegregated establishments. A store-holder who might otherwise have been willing to serve blacks would then refuse to desegregate–not out of malice but rather reacting to “rational” economic factors by which racial equality led to economic disadvantage. And of course, even if the owner was privately sympathetic the cause of racial justice, she would never speak at a civil rights rally because she knows the economic retaliation would be lethal to her business (“I ain’t gonna shop at that Jew/Black/Gay lover’s store”).
What this shows is how the existence of overwhelming “private” discriminatory viewpoints can reify discrimination as a whole, even in public spaces. That is, racism (and heterosexism) act as market distortions which make the “rational” choice adherence to the racist (heterosexist) norm. It cuts the heart out of positions which assume that the “free market” will solve the problem. When the rational choice is to adhere to (or at least ally with) homophobia, then the free market acts as a barrier to, not a facilitator of, positive change.
For the purposes of this debate, the presence of market distorting factors complicates the argument greatly. On the one hand, we can’t force LOA to abandon its homophobia if it doesn’t actually possess it. On the other hand, we can’t just let LOA “freely” accede to the prevailing homophobic environment, because doing that enables the very discrimination which prevents gay activists from even challenging oppressive mindsets (IE, if left alone, “free market” discrimination will infinitely replicate itself because challenging the discrimination becomes an irrational choice). It seems that what really needs to happen is that the “consumer” (Georgia citizens) needs to become less homophobic–but ironically, we can’t change their mindset because the very position we want to challenge (homophobia) prevents us from putting up the billboards which make the challenge possible.
Quite a pickle.