This Bud's not for us: Two groups opposing homosexuality have taken a budding campaign for a boycott of Anheuser-Busch to the brewery's home city last week, saying the brewers are promoting homosexuality by sponsoring events for gays, according to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.
The groups have been showing a video of a recent gay leather festival in San Francisco in which Anheuser-Busch's Bud Lite beer was the only national sponsor for the second consecutive year, the coalition says. The video showed Bud Lite and Budweiser signs and trucks in the background while men and women disrobed, spanked, and whipped each other, the coalition continues.
"We understand this is not typical gay behavior," says Americans for Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera, at a news conference at St. Louis's Union Station. The NCSF says LaBarbera and Joseph Glover of the Family Policy Network also said they understand Anheuser-Busch courting gays because of their above-average disposable income, but they couldn't understand why the brewer sponsored such events promoting self-destructive behavior.
Anheuser-Busch says it supported the fair because of the benefits it brings San Francisco, being the third-largest outdoor festival in California and raising over $200,000 for charity.
ATAH and the FPN also object to a coming Anheuser-Busch ad campaign said to be coming in the spring and featuring gay people in gay-oriented publications. Glover says he thinks most customers have no idea the brewers are reaching out to that diverse an audience.
FPN, in fact, has a Web site posted to protest Anheuser-Busch's courting of the gay buyership, www.gaybeer.com . They're calling for a boycott including a refusal to buy the brewers' products or patronize their known sponsored events or their owned parks like SeaWorld, not to mention a letter-writing campaign demanding the company eliminate its "alternative lifestyles manager" position.
