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FIRST ON FOX — State Farm quickly ditched a controversial partnership that pushed books about gender fluidity on young children last month after Consumers’ Research launched the “Like a Creepy Neighbor” campaign, but low internal morale, angry agents and a follow-up campaign loom over the company’s 100-year anniversary celebration.
Consumers’ Research launched the next phase of its campaign against State Farm on Monday, with a new website AskStateFarmWhy.com. The site allows people to sign a petition demanding State Farm enlist a third party to audit all programs targeting children, determine every school, public library, and community center where the books were donated, publish the findings and notify parents in the areas where books were made available to children.
“The name of this campaign is ‘Ask State Farm Why?’ And it’s set to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the founding of that company and their celebrations of that anniversary in Las Vegas. We want to remind State Farm agents, and especially State Farm executives like the CEO, that they still have work to do to clean up the damage that they did to America’s children,” Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hild told Fox News Digital.
Hild’s group was behind the “Like a Creepy Neighbor” campaign that stunned State Farms agents and staffers across the nation when it was revealed that the insurance juggernaut State Farm urged Florida agents to provide LGBTQ+ books to children through a partnership with the GenderCool program – which describes itself as “helping replace misinformed opinions with positive experiences meeting transgender and non-binary youth who are thriving.” The books included titles such as “A Kids Book About Being Non-Binary” and “A Kids Book About Being Transgender.”
Consumers’ Research, a conservative nonprofit, launched the website LikeACreepyNeighbor.com, where information and ways to take action against State Farm were provided. The group also created a 30-second ad, titled, “Like a Creepy Neighbor,” which mocked the company’s slogan, and began with a narrator declaring that State Farm says it’s a good neighbor before asking, “But would a good neighbor target five-year olds for conversation about sexual identity?”
The new ad begins with the narrator saying, “State Farm says they’re a good neighbor. But would a good neighbor target five-year-olds for conversations about sexual identity? State Farm did for six months they asked employees to donate guides to being transgender to public schools.”
The narrator then says the books make kindergartners “question their identity” and pondered how parents are supposed to know where the books remain available before asking, “What’s State Farm doing about it?”
State Farm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The initial campaign caused widespread backlash and State Farm emailed employees less than 24 hours later to announce it would no longer be partaking in the GenderCool program. But multiple employees and State Farm agents have since reached out to Fox News Digital on a condition of anonymity to express disgust that their employer would push a left-wing agenda related to children.
“Employee morale is terrible,” one agent told Fox News Digital.
Another current agent told Fox News Digital that an internal statement about the GenderCool program “aligns with other progressive ideals that have been pushed on us regarding training and the like over the course of the last couple of years.”
Fox News Digital also obtained a letter sent to State Farm chairman of the board Michael L. Tipsord from the National Association of State Farm Agents that a declaring a lack of trust within the company as a result of the partnership with GenderCool left agents “heartbroken.”
Hild doesn’t believe State Farm has done enough to make up for their role in delivery these books to classrooms across the country. He wants to know where the books are, how many children have read them, how this could have occurred without State Farms executives shutting it down, who knew and when they knew and what other programs like this is the company involved with.
“The books that they donated that are, you know, transgender and training, aimed at five-year-olds are still out there. They’re still in schools and public libraries. And State Farm has done nothing to clean up their mistakes and to stop their ongoing harm of America’s children that they caused,” he said.
As part of the new campaign, Consumers’ Research will begin airing an updated version of the ad nationally with an emphasis on Las Vegas where thousands of State Farm agents will be gathering for the company’s 100th anniversary.
“Part of this campaign will include a mobile billboard going around the convention center and the Las Vegas Strip, reminding State Farm that they have a moral obligation to clean up the damage that they did to America’s youth and specifically asking them why they refuse to clean this up,” Hild said. “To undo the damage, to audit the programs they have that target children to, ascertain everywhere where they donated a book and then to make both the audit and the list of places they donated public so that parents can make sure that their children are not being harmed by this material.”
Hild believes that State Farm honchos probably want to just ignore criticism and hope it goes away, but they’ll be forced to undo the damage they’ve already caused because customers and employees are so bothered by the far-left activism.
“We heard overwhelmingly both from customers but also State Farm agents alike, that they were livid that State Farm was engaged in this kind of vile activity targeted at five-year-olds. So we do expect them to clean it up, and if they don’t, we’re going to continue to come after them,” Hild said. “Until they can clean up these books, get them out of the hands of five-year-olds, they can’t even begin to once again say they are a good neighbor, they are a creepy neighbor, and people can want you to join in the campaign, can visit, AskStateFarmWhy.com.”
Consumers’ Research has previously launched campaigns against other companies, including BlackRock, Levi’s and American Express.
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