Donald Wildmon
Donald E. Wildmon (born 18 January 1938 in Dumas, Mississippi) is the founder and chairman of the American Family Association.
Biography
He graduated from Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, in 1960. In 1961 he married Lynda Lou Bennett with whom he has two sons and two daughters. From 1961 to 1963, he served in the U.S. Army. He was ordained as a minister of the United Methodist Church in 1964 and served as a pastor until 1977, when he left the pastoral ministry to campaign against pornography and violence in the media. He gained his Master of Divinity (MDiv.) from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, in 1965.
Wildmon founded the National Federation for Decency in 1977, and it was renamed the American Family Association in 1988. The AFA claims a membership of 2,558,861 with over 500 local branches. It is not known how many of these members are active participants.
Throughout the late 1970s, Wildmon actively protested television shows that he thought promoted immoral lifestyles. He spoke against such programs as Three's Company, M*A*S*H, and Dallas.[citation needed]
In 1991 he began broadcasting the American Family Radio network (AFR, then WAFR) from Tupelo, Mississippi and now broadcasts to over 40 states.[citation needed]
Other productions and organizations against which he has campaigned against include Disneyland/Walt Disney World for allowing LGBT community groups to host "gay days," the film The Last Temptation of Christ, Madonna's Like a Prayer, Robert Clark Young's novel One of the Guys, and Blockbuster Video for stocking NC-17 rated movies.
Up until mid-April 2007, Wildmon hosted the daily radio program AFA Report, which airs weekdays at 12:05 p.m. central time on AFR. Wildmon left the program because he felt he didn't have adequate time to prepare for it each day, and he needed more time to fulfill other duties. He returned to the program in late April 2008, after receiving letters from listeners asking for him to come back, and after expansions in staff and studio space allowed him more preparation time. In early September, however, Wildmon unexpectedly left the program once again, this time for unknown reasons. He can still be heard on My Turn with Don Wildmon, a short devotional segment which airs in reruns weekdays at 7:30 a.m. central on AFR.
His son Timothy is the president of AFA and ran a news organization called Agape Press, which went offline in early 2007, when it merged with AFR News to create One News Now. Mr Wildmon is Racist, Homophobic and possibly related to Adolf Hitler.
Portrayals of Wildmon
Comedian George Carlin mentioned Wildmon in his 1988 HBO show What Am I Doing in New Jersey? claiming that his opinions influenced the Ronald Reagan Administration to regulate television and radio because he heard things on the radio that "he didn't like". He proceeded to claim that Wildmon did not understand the concept of freedom of choice and advised him to look it up in a library "if [he had] any of them left when [he] finished burning all the books".
Wildmon has responded to his critics by pointing out that he never called for any laws to be passed regulating television. He notes that a boycott, by definition, involves freedom of choice. If his members refuse to buy products from companies that sponsor certain television programs, they are exercising freedom of choice.
In 1991, the British film Damned in the USA, directed by Paul Yule, chronicled the battle between Wildmon and artists Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe. Musician Lou Reed contributed a reworking of his song "Walk on the Wild Side" entitled "Walk on the Wildmon." This documentary got several awards, including the International Emmy for Best Documentary. After a distributor got the rights to show the film in the United States, Wildmon sued the producers for $8 million in damages, claiming he had a contract with the producers that prevented distribution in the USA. A federal court found that Wildmon's contract did not support his claim concerning distribution of the film.[citation needed]
Wildmon was portrayed by actor Tom Anniko in a very brief scene in the 2003 made-for-TV movie Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Three's Company.