If you’re craving a Bud Light or a Shock Top at the Stonewall Inn during Pride month, you’ll be out of luck. The New York City bar is boycotting alcohol manufacturer Anheuser-Busch in protest of its extensive donations to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians.
The ban will start this Friday in support of the “Keep Your Pride” campaign, a project of Corporate Accountability Action, which organizes to urge corporations to promote inclusivity. Stonewall’s co-owners, Stacy Lentz and Kurt Kelly, will also ceremonially pour some of the offending beverages down the drain, according to The Guardian.
“We just felt Stonewall having the platform, the power to do this, it was important to stand up,” Lentz told the U.K. newspaper. “We really just want Anheuser-Busch to stop donating to lawmakers who are trying to legalize discrimination.”
Keep Your Pride’s report, which was based on data from the National Institute on Money in Politics, shows that Anheuser-Busch has donated $35,350 to 29 anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers between the years of 2015 to 2021. This includes politicians in Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi, states that have passed some of the worst anti-trans laws that have been filed in legislatures this year.
All three states signed bills limiting transgender athletes from participating on school sports teams, while, but Tennessee recently became the second state ever to restrict access to gender-affirming care for trans minors.
The campaign also scrutinizes AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Motors, and NBCUniversal for their sizable donations to anti-LGBTQ+ legislators. Among these, Coca-Cola gave a relatively modest amount to anti-LGBTQ+ legislators, with $9,550 in donations over the time span surveyed.
But last week, the other corporations named in the campaign came under fire for their donation history via a report from Popular Information, a newsletter founded by ThinkProgress founder Judd Legum. The report named AT&T and NBCUniversal as some of the worst offenders, with both corporations donating over $1 million each to anti-LGBTQ+ representatives since 2019.
Although Anheuser-Busch isn’t included in the Popular Information report, the company did receive the highest possible score on Human Rights Campaign (HRC)’s most recent Corporate Equality Index, as did all of the other corporations criticized in its survey. HRC attributes this discrepancy to the fact that it does not include political donations in its evaluations for the annual index, which primarily ranks internal politics for LGBTQ+ employees.
Stonewall’s move to ban Anheuser-Busch, however temporarily, was lauded by the New York City-based brewer Dyke Beer, which is LGBTQ+ owned and operated. Founded by activists Loretta Andro Chung and Sarah Hallonquist, the company said the bar’s commitment to calling out corporate donors to the GOP was “a big deal.”
“This helps us little queer beer companies and creates a space that’s more supportive of the LGBTQ+ community,” the company wrote in a Monday Instagram post.
In a statement, Anheuser-Busch said that it supports “candidates for public office whose policy positions and objectives support investments in our communities, job creation, and industry growth.” “Together, with our brands, we have a clear role to play in bringing real change and creating an inclusive and equitable world where we cherish and celebrate one another,” the statement continued.
At the very least, Anheuser-Busch seems to have left Pride month alone on its social media this month, unlike the other temporarily rainbow-plastered brands that have secretly been bankrolling anti-LGBTQ+ legislators this whole time.
A partial list of Anheuser-Busch’s brands — which includes Stella Artois and Blue Point — can be found here.
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