Hate and other fun topics

I'm having lunch with a friend (aka "John Smith") when he tells me that the company he works for asked him if he would go work on a new project with a particular client. Nothing unusual with the request, John had just rolled off another project and was looking for something new and exciting. So what's the catch, you ask?

The client is one of the hate groups that hide behind religious doctrine, twisting and warping biblical phrases to fit their agenda. They pour millions of dollars into keeping their "warm and fuzzy" messages out in the mainstream. Of course they say lots of "don't knockdown your neighbor's door and beat him senseless when his stupid dog shits all over your front lawn but try to talk to him" messages. However, they fill those with lots of socially conservative messages that seeks to stigmatize and alienate segments of the population.

So what? It is just a job so you do it. Well John has chosen a lifestyle that puts him into one of those segments of the population that this client is targeting. While John doesn't make his lifestyle an issue he also doesn't hide it so anyone who has had a few conversations with him will understand this. I'm fairly confident that the person who asked him to work for the client knew this about John.

Some questions that are rattling through my brain: How do you ask someone to do this? Are you seriously thinking they might actually take the role? Wouldn't every client meeting be slightly awkward for everyone? The one motivation that I could understand is if you just wanted to see their reaction, kind of like an experiment, something Stanley Milgram would be proud of. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment] [Note: the only other things I remember from my college psych courses are that you can train a dog to drool and a monkey to love a doll. Great lessons for life and money well spent.]