It’s great to see the success of Brokeback Mountain, a movie that finally depicts gay men and gay relationships in a realistic and positive way. What a change from our so-called friends who continue to create TV and movie characters who simply reinforce false negative stereotypes that I don’t need to repeat here.

It is ironic, though, that the right focused its attention on Ford rather than stage a campaign to picket movie theaters showing this historic movie.

But instead, on Dec. 1, the American Family Association (AFA) called off a threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. after the automobile manufacturer agreed to stop supporting the “homosexual lifestyle,” according to Donald Wildmon, chair of the AFA.

The gay paper Southern Voice reported that Wildmon initially called for a boycott of Ford in June, noting on the AFA’s Web site that “if one looks for the company which has done the most to promote the homosexual lifestyle, it would be hard-pressed to find another that has done more than Ford Motor Company.”

The protest was temporarily suspended soon after Jerry Reynolds, the owner of a Ford dealership in Dallas, was alerted to the boycott and grew concerned that it might impact his business.

Reynolds contacted Wildmon, arranged a meeting between the AFA and concerned dealers, and helped broker the suspension of the boycott, Reynolds said in a June interview with Southern Voice.

Wardsauto.com, an automobile industry Web site, reported Ford officials met with AFA leaders at the anti-gay group’s offices in Tupelo, Miss., on Nov. 29.

Rivendell Marketing, a New York firm that places ads in gay and lesbian publications across the U.S., said that Ford had spent more than $500,000 with the agency on advertising since January 2004.

I sympathize with Ford and with the gay publications that stand to lose millions in lost advertising revenue. We are victims of a crime called extortion. Here’s why.

First, let’s distinguish what AFA is doing to Ford from what we do when we call for an economic boycott of a business that engages in bias based upon sexual orientation. That’s protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has held that economic boycotts are a perfectly lawful exercise to engage in when a business refuses to comply with civil rights laws.

For example, in the ’60s, businesses refused to comply with federal and state civil rights laws, especially those calling for equal treatment of blacks and Jews. So African-Americans (like Rosa Parks) staged boycotts of businesses (bus companies, diners, hotels) that refused to comply with civil rights laws.

Federal law required an end to Jim Crow (segregation) laws. When businesses still refused to admit or hire blacks, blacks staged boycotts. The businesses sued. The court said the First Amendment protects economic boycotts when the recipient of the boycott is not following the law. However, when groups like the KKK either threatened to, or staged boycotts (or burned) businesses that did comply with the laws, the courts ruled those were acts of extortion and conspiracy to violate civil rights.

So, please – the AFA’s actions are not simply political protests or economic boycotts protected by the Constitution. They’re telling Ford to violate federal and state laws requiring equal treatment of gays and straights or it is going to attempt to economically ruin some Ford dealers, just as Jerry Reynolds (the Ford dealer in Dallas) feared. So Ford lawyers make the only concession they think they can defend in court: stop placing ads in gay media.

Under federal law, groups like the AFA (and anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue) are familiar with a federal law that makes groups criminally and civilly liable when they in engage in corrupt practices (extortion) across state lines. No one can threaten a business with economic ruin unless it stops doing what’s legally required, such as treating employees the same regardless of sexual orientation. That’s all Ford does.

Under Federal and California law, Ford has a legal duty to treat gay employees the same as straight employees; and California requires it to treat same-sex couples (registered domestic partners) the same as married couples.

If AFA has a problem with the law, then it can take its case to the ballot box or engage in protests outside political bodies or spew away in the media. But blackmail is not a fair tactic in this country.

U.S. Attorney Carol Lam should investigate whether AFA’s “threatened” economic boycott of Ford (for following federal and state law) amounted to violations of federal laws.