I have often wondered if the American Family Association had ever really accomplished anything with its myriad of boycotts Often, it seems, AFA generates a lot of coverage by announcing some new boycott and then either claims victory for vague reasons or else just quietly drops it altogether.
But last week, Movie Gallery, the second-largest video-rental chain in North America, announced that it was going out of business ... and now the AFA is taking credit:
American Family Association has worked for years to close down Movie Gallery shops, pointing out to consumers and law-enforcement authorities the company's practice of distributing hardcore pornography out of stores' "back rooms." Randy Sharp is director of special projects for AFA.
"We're now seeing that Movie Gallery, which is in its second bankruptcy in the last five years, is continuing to close more and more stores," he notes. "At one time, Movie Gallery had over 2,000 video stores. They're now down to just a few hundred."
Several years ago, AFA launched a boycott of the stores and continued it with success in several states. In Mississippi alone 80 percent of the stores were shuttered. The AFA spokesman says that came about because the pro-family group raised awareness to communities in that state, citizens became involved, and the law was enforced.
Of course, the real reason Movie Gallery is going out of business is because is has been unable to compete with the new services movie delivery services like Netflix, Redbox and the Internet. Blockbuster is likewse struggling to stay afloat as well ... I wonder if the AFA is responsible for that as well.
Interestingly, as far as I have been able to tell, AFA's boycott of Movie Gallery started back sometime before 2001. So it basically took AFA a decade to see success ... a decade during which technological advancements just so happen to have made Movie Gallery's business model obsolete
