Stonewall Inn to pour Bud Light down the drain in Anheuser-Busch protest

June 22, 2021 6:18 PM

Anheuser-Busch contributed more than $35,000 to 29 legislators it described as anti-LGBTQ+ between 2015 and 2020. “You can’t turn your logo rainbow on social media, call yourself an ally, and then turn around and make donations that fuel hate,” Lentz said in a statement. “There are really no excuses, and companies like Anheuser-Busch need to own up to what they’ve done.”
posted by folklore724 (33 comments total)

Mod note: Since this is just an AP filing, I've gone ahead and swapped out the original Guardian link for an alternate source another member suggested in a flag; see this recent MetaTalk for context on why Guardian as a source on queer issues is not a great choice.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:28 PM on June 22, 2021 [14 favorites]

Fuck AB.
posted by glaucon at 6:31 PM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

There is a lot of spin in this article. I am all for outrage over major corporations donating to anti LGBTQ+ politicians and organizations, but we're talking about a company that brings in upwards of $50 Billion in revenue every year donating pocket change to politicians. $35,000 over 5 years is $7,000 a year. Or about $1,200 per each of the 29 politicians. Who are these 29 legislators? What level of government do they represent? Who was responsible for making the donations? Did the donations have anything to do with the legislation attacking trans youth? Do the politicians the donations were made to have anything to do with passing the Equality Act?

This article is missing all of that important information. Can we find out the answers to those questions before we jump on the outrage wagon?
posted by DEiBnL13 at 7:05 PM on June 22, 2021 [10 favorites]

I have to confess that I’m a little surprised the donated amount is so small.

AB is an enormous company. These donations average out to about $1200 per legislator, spread out over five years. Or, $240 per legislator per year?

I mean, even one dollar would be too much and I’m glad to see the pushback, but this seems like chickenfeed for a megacorp like AB.

One edit: LOL, jinx DEiBnL13!
posted by darkstar at 7:07 PM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

That's enough to get the politicians to listen to you, and goes into their coffers for reelection all the same.

Unless there's a lower limit on how much harm we're allowed bothered by?

"outrage wagon" is not a term to use if you want people to think you aren't concern trolling, honestly, especially when it comes to defending Anheuser-Busch. Like, do they need defense from outrage?
posted by sagc at 7:13 PM on June 22, 2021 [22 favorites]

I feel like "one dollar would be too much" is a pretty reasonable position for Stonewall to take in making a PR protest against funding shitty legislation. $35K is chump change for a megacorp and also something a megacorp could easily afford not to spend in the first place. Maybe this is enough that in the future, AB will, in fact, not spend any of those dollars.
posted by cortex at 7:14 PM on June 22, 2021 [22 favorites]

I'm very much in favor of making the outrage bar $1.

...and I'm gonna spare everyone my rant on that.

$1.
posted by aramaic at 7:20 PM on June 22, 2021 [20 favorites]

It’s undoubtedly donations that they don’t need to make. Which does make me wonder why they made them, at all. Why incur potential backlash with such relatively small numbers involved?

It makes me suspect the donations were made to influence highly local issues, like maybe to get local state lege or city council members to support tax abatements, re-zoning for AB plants, etc.

Eh, but my original point stands: even one dollar is too much.
posted by darkstar at 7:22 PM on June 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

Q: What do you call a few hundred gallons of AB product dumped off a cliff?

A: A good start.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:23 PM on June 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Good for them! I really like that I've seen a lot of pushback against the corporate pinkwashing that happens every June. It's not just AB, pretty much every major corporation donates money to republicans while slapping a rainbow on their logo for a month and tweeting about inclusivity or whatever.
posted by drinkyclown at 7:52 PM on June 22, 2021 [6 favorites]

It makes me suspect the donations were made to influence highly local issues, like maybe to get local state lege or city council members to support tax abatements, re-zoning for AB plants, etc.

I wondered as well. From the article, here's a full list of the legislators.

FWIW, it really only takes a little bit of money to buy influence.
posted by mochapickle at 7:57 PM on June 22, 2021 [8 favorites]

It makes me suspect the donations were made to influence highly local issues, like maybe to get local state lege or city council members to support tax abatements, re-zoning for AB plants, etc.

It doesn't really matter why you give money to the heinous bigots. They will use your money to deliver their bigoted agenda. And you have therefore enabled that bigotry.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:05 PM on June 22, 2021 [17 favorites]

I get it - it’s small ball compared to their revenue. But when you sell X amount on “supporting” pride when changing your logo and you don’t check the fucking math on the anti-LGBQT politicians you support, then it’s on them.

Don’t sell product using social causes you don’t actually support. Period.
posted by glaucon at 8:16 PM on June 22, 2021 [11 favorites]

As bad as it is for corporations to wave our rainbow flag on their websites and their products, all while giving money to Republicans for doing what Republicans are born and bought off to do, the problem is that money buys these cretins, in the first place.

The First Amendment will protect and defend political grift to the death, before our federal government protects and defends peaceful political protest.

If anything, the latter has been made illegal to the point where a sitting President can send the military to gas citizens without any legal consequences.

Until monetary "donations" to politicians are made illegal — especially right-wing politicians — we're probably just rolling boulders uphill. There are likely more straight Bud drinkers than there are gay people, altogether. It is hard to see how the free market has interest to solve problems caused by the free market. Lip service is free and easy.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:36 PM on June 22, 2021 [7 favorites]

If you're chiming in on how this isn't a big deal, feel free to follow up by donating to a charity supporting trans youth. Perhaps The Trevor Project.
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:12 PM on June 22, 2021 [11 favorites]

This is weird. It’s a bunch of chicken feed state legislators in a few states. I can’t figure out by what criteria they were identified as anti-LGBTQ; they mostly have pretty low profiles.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:13 PM on June 22, 2021

There are state senators and reps in there, so, and they mostly seem to be republicans; point me to all the LGBTQ-friendly Tennessee senators they've donated to.
posted by sagc at 9:21 PM on June 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have the feeling that all large corps continually send money to legislators without much thought or oversight. Here's Google donating money to have its own employees deported.
posted by meowzilla at 9:38 PM on June 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

drinkyclown is correct hence the low amounts but if you get 500$ instead of the grand, does that say something, like a signal and as always great to read drinkyclown:)

I wondered as well. From the article, here's a full list of the legislators.
FWIW, it really only takes a little bit of money to buy influence.
posted by mochapickle at 10:57 PM .

Again spot on as always. Why, I looked and
I worked in Jacksonville FLA.
At a Store, along the rail tracks between A-B, the largest plant and Bacardi. So who who's district is that see what I'm sayin', he got a grand. Oh, and who else. Shoooo a gaming fixture, got a Grand, twice.
Normally I'd scuff and scoff but it's 2021 and whats gonna be said say if A-B squawks back as if they would, how do you back step that great line wegivetoalotofpoltlicans, you see what I'm sayin' Some*, well, may hand wavey a memo next week with a reminder that sales are UP and handbook goodness from the environment ETC. INC.
it's blending money and local interest, same as 1921, just different hats.

*some company optical feedback/feed loop.I'm not quite sure either.
posted by clavdivs at 9:39 PM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

ok, nitrous is gone.
without much thought
3 words, four syllables. That is the point to as if to be ubiquitous. Making the money seem like lunch money but it's not, it's pretty much an automated small cash endorsement that acts like Shirley MacLaine in 'Postcards': WELL... if confronted.
posted by clavdivs at 9:56 PM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is weird. It’s a bunch of chicken feed state legislators in a few states. I can’t figure out by what criteria they were identified as anti-LGBTQ; they mostly have pretty low profiles.

I started going through the list:

Cord Byrd of Florida publicly supported a bill banning trans kids from high school sportss.

Randy Fine of Florida wants to ban trans kids from bathrooms and sports and is sponsoring a bill to that effect.

Mike Bell of Tennessee is also a sponsor of an anti-trans bathroom bill. Same with John Stevens.

I'm not going to do them all, they're all the same - they're all rabid anti-trans motherfuckers, who don't want trans kids to do sports, use bathrooms, or exist.

Don't worry, they're all racist and sexist too.

'Low profile' nationally doesn't mean that they are low profile locally, or that they don't have local power.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:59 PM on June 22, 2021 [23 favorites]

I can’t figure out by what criteria they were identified as anti-LGBTQ; they mostly have pretty low profiles.

Did you Google their name, state, and lgbt?

I did with Mike Bell and the first page answers your question.
posted by orange ball at 10:01 PM on June 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

All of that anti-trans bullshit was in 2021, though. These donations were all made before that.

There are state senators and reps in there, so, and they mostly seem to be republicans; point me to all the LGBTQ-friendly Tennessee senators they've donated to.

I went into the followthemoney database and identified the following Democratic state legislators in Tennessee that AB donated to in 2020:

Harold M. Love
Johnny W. Shaw
Rick Staples
Carson W. Beck
Michael G. Stewart

Didn't spend a ton of time researching them, but here's an article about Stewart pushing the AG to add a hate crime enhancement to crimes against trans people; the first in the South.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:17 PM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

All of that anti-trans bullshit was in 2021, though. These donations were all made before that.

So? I just picked the most recent terrible thing they'd done. I guarantee that they were doing bigoted nonsense before then.

I went into the followthemoney database and identified the following Democratic state legislators in Tennessee that AB donated to in 2020:

How is this relevant? If you meet guy that murders puppies, it's completely beside the point that he also pats kittens. The two actions don't balance out somehow.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:24 PM on June 22, 2021 [9 favorites]

What, exactly, are you trying to demonstrate here, mr_roboto? That AB has the best interests of queer people at heart, and shouldn't be punished by the mean Stonewall... not buying from them?

And you do realize that Republicans have been pushing anti-LGBTQ laws since before 2021, right?
posted by sagc at 10:25 PM on June 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

I just want to know the methodology. This seems completely undocumented.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:26 PM on June 22, 2021

They saw that a company was donating to Republicans, they stopped using that company's product? It seems pretty straightforward!
posted by sagc at 10:42 PM on June 22, 2021 [8 favorites]

Here's Google donating money to have its own employees deported.

The "don't be evil" days have long since departed.

we're talking about a company that brings in upwards of $50 Billion in revenue every year donating pocket change to politicians

Ok, would you be ok with those companies donating corporate pocket change to a literal Nazi politician? Probably not. So where is your threshold?
posted by Candleman at 10:45 PM on June 22, 2021

If you're chiming in on how this isn't a big deal, feel free to follow up by donating to a charity supporting trans youth. Perhaps The Trevor Project.


If this was directed at me, please allow me to push back on this framing of my early comments in this thread. I didn’t say it wasn’t a “big deal”…just that it seemed like small change relative to the size of the corporation and the kind of money such entities normally throw at legislators. And then I repeatedly said that even one dollar was too much.

And the ad hominem implication that commenters noting the relatively small donations presumably must not support trans youth charities is also off target. I’m a proud supporter of Trans Queer Pueblo and One-n-Ten.
posted by darkstar at 11:33 PM on June 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Sure 35k is nothing for a big company but that's more than I make in a year. That's significant to me. Like a year of labor being used for hate. Fuck AB
posted by Dhertiiboi at 4:30 AM on June 23, 2021 [8 favorites]

Years ago, Huey Long used to say that he bought and sold Louisiana state legislators like sacks of potatoes.

Years later, a reporter reminded Earl Long of that quote, and he said "I don't buy em, I rent em, it's cheaper."

State legislators can get away with a lot of vileness, there's less oversight and they are...small potatoes. Groups like ALEC have found that they can inject a lot of bullshit into the political process by buying and pressuring legislators.
posted by gimonca at 5:21 AM on June 23, 2021 [6 favorites]

If anything that list of Pols bought cheap is too short. Surely AB has been buying up bigot legislators in more states than Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
posted by notyou at 6:44 AM on June 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Luckily for my soul, I do not drink AB product.
posted by Windopaene at 9:23 AM on June 23, 2021 [1 favorite]