Family Research Council angry at Amtrak for targeting potential lgbt customers

I got the following email from the Family Research Council:

Dear Alvin,

If there was ever proof that the Obama Administration has gone off the rails, it's Amtrak. For the first time in the train service's history, Amtrak has decided to spend a quarter-million dollars recruiting homosexual passengers. As you may know, Amtrak isn't a private business. This is a government-run business, meaning that this $250,000 is taken directly from taxpayers' pockets. In a very real sense, this ad campaign is a federal endorsement of homosexual behavior -- one of the most serious public health threats in America. Using taxpayer funds to promote this ad campaign is insulting to the millions of Americans who have deeply-held moral convictions against homosexuality. Yet Washington is targeting the demographically small homosexual population-probably because marketing surveys suggest it is also one of the richest. So let's be honest. This Administration is more interested in riding the gravy train than getting the culture back on track.

Please contact senior officials at Amtrak and ask them to stop this campaign using your tax dollars!

Now this is being totally ridiculous, even for the Family Research Council. The ad campaign in question is rather innocent and is nothing that Amtrak hasn't done before with other groups:

For the first time, Amtrak is courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered travelers with a targeted $250,000 multimedia advertising blitz this summer.


The government-owned rail company is looking to the LGBT community for business with the hopes that its propensity for travel will translate well into rail transportation.

While Amtrak spokeswoman, Karina Romero did not go into specifics, she told The Daily Caller, “We are always looking for new ways to reach potential passengers and this community travels a lot.”

Darlene Abubakar, the director of national advertising for Amtrak, told TheDC, “Most all of the major airlines, hotels and others in the travel and tourism industry target the LGBT market segment … Amtrak ’s goal is to raise the level of awareness of the benefits of train travel and increase consideration and ridership amongst this segment.”

 . . . Amtrak has targeted other demographic groups in the past, including students, seniors, veterans, families with children, Hispanics, African Americans and international customers. However this is the first time it has aimed its efforts toward the LGBT community. Romero told TheDC that Amtrak advertisements would be featured in television and publications specifically geared toward the LGBT population.

You see this is what we talk about when we accuse FRC and organizations like them of being homophobic. It's one thing to have a religious belief against homosexuality, but that claim about "homosexual behavior being a public health threat" is like a racist saying that Amtrak shouldn't target the African-American community because it may cause black men to  have sex with white women.

There is nothing Christian about exploiting ignorance and fear.