[Vol. 52] Pour One Out for Gay Rights
Big soda and beer are in trouble.
Hey folks 👋
Remember how we talked about queerwashing companies and the #keepyourpride campaign in last week’s newsletter?
Well, unfortunately, the topic is a lot bigger than one newsletter.
Like, for example, I’ve been seeing these Coke ads plastered all over the city.
“Show your sparkle” huh? Well, according to Keep Your Pride, an LGBTQ+ focused corporate watchdog campaign, Coke shows their sparkle by donating nearly $10,000 to legislators backing anti-LGBTQ+ interests.
How’s that for fucking *sparkle*?
It pisses me off to no end, you guys. What good is a rainbow campaign for Pride month when part of the revenue it generates goes towards lawmakers that don’t recognize Pride month to begin with; that literally won’t vote in favor of equal rights for LGBTQ+ people (referencing the Equality Act here).
No, $10,000 may not be a huge amount in the grand scheme of things – especially in relation to the billions of dollars Coca-Cola rakes in every year in annual income – but it’s not nothing. At worst, it helps push another anti-trans bill over the hill in the legislator; at best, it sends the message that big companies like Coca-Cola are willing to overlook the freedoms and protections of their LGBTQ+ customers if some powerful homophobic, transphobic lawmaker has pledged to prop them up.
Either way, it’s not a great look. The Stonewall agrees.
If you’ve ever learned even a little bit about the gay rights movement in the U.S., you know about Stonewall. The Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village has an infamous place in LGBTQ+ history as the location of the Stonewall Riots, where queer patrons of the bar retaliated against a routine police raid.
Today, the event is still largely credited for catalyzing the modern gay rights movement. In short, it was no small potatoes.
And, as it turns out, once a rebellious bar, always a rebellious bar.
Yesterday, the Stonewall made it back into my newsfeed, but not for some honorary tribute to its past.
As reported by LGBTQ+ Nation yesterday, the Stonewall has pledged to pour one out in the interest of LGBTQ+ rights - or should I say, pour many ones out.
After the Keep Your Pride campaign exposed beer giant Anheuser-Busch for funding anti-LGBTQ+ legislators with upwards of $35,000, the Stonewall decided to honor its rebellious history by banning all its manufactured beers.
Corporate Accountability Action, the creators of the Keep Your Pride campaign, tweeted the Stonewall’s message at Anheuser-Busch with a simple question – “What are you waiting for?”
This is a bigger deal than you might think.
Not only is the Stonewall a *literal* historic landmark (thanks to Obama, who declared the space an official National Monument in 2016) but it’s also … well, a bar.
Bars serve beer – lots of it – and Anheuser-Busch makes a lot of beer. According to LGBTQ+ Nation, the company is responsible for the manufacturing of dive bar staples such as “Budweiser and Bud Light, Stella Artois, Michelob, and Shock Top beers”.
A bar banning beers, no matter how generic they might be, is not an easy choice for them to make. In fact, it’s probably not an economically advantageous choice to make.
It’s a choice that undeniably centers LGBTQ+ rights, even at the cost of profit
– something we haven’t seen from Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, and other big companies that have wrapped themselves in rainbow for Pride month.
I realize that the Stonewall isn’t a massive corporation like the subjects of the Keep Your Pride campaign. I realize also that for corporations like Coca-Cola and Anheuser-Busch, making decisions on where their money goes is a complex process filled with long board room meetings, many vested interests, and more than a few powerful parties with something to say.
It’s apples and oranges.
Still, I think these big companies can learn a thing or two from how the Stonewall does business. I can’t speak to how easy it would be for them to detangle themselves from deals they’ve made with these anti-LGBTQ+ legislators, but can it be any harder than trying to detangle themselves from the irony of their “sparkle” with Pride marketing now?
Listen: No company – no one person – can be perfect. Someone or some group will always be pissed off. If there’s a truth in this life, it’s that.
But when the lives of LGBTQ+ youth are at stake, when it’s been the worst year in recent history for LGBTQ+ rights and protections in the legislator, and when a bar as famous as the Stonewall literally starts pouring out your beer, I think it’s time to reconsider.
Once again for the companies in the back: If you’ve got a rainbow flag in your marketing campaign but won’t hold one up in the legislator, please, #keepyourpride.
Find me on Instagram: @till_kaeslin
Check out the newsletter’s home on Instagram: @thatsgaynewsletter
And that was That’s Gay, Volume 52.
See you in Volume 53, folks!
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