Lowe's misses chance to turn away bigotry

The Observer's Tuesday editorial:

Corporations are notorious fence-sitters on public issues, and understandably so. They’re in the business of making money, not taking moral stands, because you don’t want to take sides on topics that might divide your customers. But sometimes an issue confronts you, and like it or not, the fence disappears.

Lowe’s Inc. missed an opportunity to make the right choice this week when faced with outrage over advertising it pulled from a weekly cable TV series about Muslim-Americans. Instead, it issued a sorry-but-not-really apology, and in doing so, the Mooresville retailer has appeared weak-kneed in the face of bigotry.

Lowe’s stopped advertising on TLC’s “All-American Muslim” after complaints from the Florida Family Association, a conservative group that’s well practiced in getting advertisers to flee from shows that don’t fit the group’s worldview. “All-American Muslim,” if you haven’t seen it, chronicles the lives of five families from Dearborn, Mich., a Detroit suburb with a substantial Muslim population. The show touches on the discrimination and profiling Muslims face in the U.S. because of their faith.

That message is lost on the Florida Family Association, which says on its web site: “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”

Lowe’s, after receiving emails from FFA members, decided to yank its advertising, which prompted Ted Lieu, a state senator from California, to threaten his own boycott last week. Lieu called the Lowe’s decision “un-American.”

Cue the hollow apology. Lowe’s issued a statement Sunday saying it was sorry for having “managed to make some people very unhappy.” The statement explained that people had strong views about “All-American Muslim,” and that Lowe’s believes “it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

Translation: This Muslim thing isn’t our fight.

The company said Monday it’s not going to resume advertising on the show. Certainly, corporations can choose to advertise how they want, and it’s likely that marketing folks at Lowe’s saw “All-American Muslim” as intriguing but benign – a show that thoughtfully asks its viewers to examine their preconceptions on Muslims. It’s possible Lowe’s didn’t know its ads were running on that specific show.

But when faced with the demand to pull the advertising, Lowe’s became part of the fight, like it or not. What to do then? The company could have said: “Advertising buys have finite runs, and when this one concludes we’ll evaluate where our advertising is most effective.” Maybe that wouldn’t have satisfied the Florida Family Association, but it would’ve allowed Lowe’s to nod to the group’s concerns, yet maintain the values it trumpets on its web site, which says: “Lowe’s is committed to treating each customer, employee, community, investor and vendor with respect and dignity.”

Instead, Lowe’s made a decision to side with a group that encourages discrimination by declining to distinguish peaceful Islam from extremism – a group that promotes bigotry Lowe’s surely doesn’t condone. It’s not too late for the company to show us that.