A bar in New York City famous for its role in LGBTQ rights history announced it would ban Anheuser-Busch (the makers of Budweiser beer) products because the company has donated money to politicians the bar claims are “anti-LGBT.”
The Hill reported that the Stonewall Inn in New York City, the site of the infamous Stonewall riots in 1969, made the announcement recently, saying the ban would take place this weekend during the city’s Pride celebration.
“You can’t turn your logo rainbow on social media, call yourself an ally, and then turn around and make donations that fuel hate. There are really no excuses, and companies like Anheuser-Busch need to own up to what they’ve done,” Stonewall Inn co-owner Stacy Lentz said in a statement, according to The Hill.
The ban includes Budweiser, Bud Light, and Michelob Ultra products.
The Inn provided shared data from the Keep Your Pride campaign, which purports to show how much companies have donated to what the organization has determined to be an “anti-LGBTQ” politician. The lawmakers tend to support religious freedom bills or bills that ensure biological women are the ones competing in women’s sports, but these are seen as “hateful” by certain LGBTQ activists.
The data from the organization claimed Anheuser-Busch donated $35,350 to so-called anti-LGBTQ lawmakers since 2015.
“We’re horrified to see so-called allies supporting lawmakers who would make life harder for anyone in our community. We urge Anheuser-Busch and other companies doing this to publicly commit to stop donating to anti-LGBTQ politicians and use their lobbying power to support the Equality Act,” Stonewall Inn co-owner Kurt Kelly said of the data.
In response to the announcement, Anheuser-Busch released a statement saying “Our company and our brands are focused on making a positive and lasting impact when it comes to issues of equality.”
The company also said it supports candidates “that support the beer industry and the millions of jobs that it creates.” The company also provided The Hill with a list of LGBT organizations and companies with which it has partnered, though the news outlet didn’t include them.
This is just the latest bullying attempt to shame companies into kowtowing to activist purity demands.
The most famous example is Jack Phillips, a baker in Colorado who refuses to bake cakes that celebrate events that violate his Christian beliefs. Phillips won a previous lawsuit because he refused to bake a same-sex wedding cake. Since then, activists have targeted his shop and filed an additional lawsuit against him, this time for refusing to bake a cake for a gender transition party.
“Jack Phillips serves all people but shouldn’t be forced to create custom cakes with messages that violate his conscience,” said Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) General Counsel Kristen Waggoner, reacting to a recent court decision that punished the baker for refusing to bake the cake.
“In this case, an activist attorney demanded Jack create custom cakes in order to ‘test’ Jack and ‘correct the errors’ of his thinking, and the activist even threatened to sue Jack again if the case is dismissed for any reason,” Waggoner explained. “Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack because they won’t promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core convictions.”