Worse, some of these businesses seem to believe that by playing both sides they won’t be held accountable. That is what makes these corporations feel less like allies and more like opportunists. It’s bad enough to see allies donate to lawmakers who vote for discrimination, but some of those dollars are going toward the very people coming up with the ideas. The court said the laws represented the values and views of the. Kenya earlier this year upheld its century-old anti-gay laws. I do know if the answer isn’t zero, there’s a problem. However, gay sex is still illegal in 30 of Africa’s 54 countries. I don’t know how much money a supposedly LGBTQ-friendly business can give to an anti-LGBTQ politician or cause and still be considered a supporter of human rights. Allies support them, and fight with them and, if necessary, for them. Now the dialogue for the LGBTQ community is centered on separating advertisers from allies. Why give money to the ones who are not?Ī year ago, the national conversation after George Floyd’s murder shifted from being non-racist to actively antiracist. But there are LGBTQ-friendly politicians in both parties. Look, playing both sides has financial advantages. The term is described as a response to gay pride adopted by various groups (later united under the moniker LGBT) in the early 1970s, or to the accommodations provided to gay pride initiative. What’s the return on that kind of investment? What is the mathematical formula that corporate America uses to determine how much anti-LGBTQ sentiment is OK to support? Or perhaps how much equality to support? I’ve wondered how many rainbow T-shirts a Fortune 500 company would need to print to nullify the effects of a bigoted piece of legislation it indirectly supported. Straight pride is a slogan that arose in the 1980s and early 1990s that has primarily been used by social conservatives as a political stance and strategy. Which raises the question: Why make the donation at all? In the grand scheme of things, those amounts are nothing in comparison to how much money flows into politics. But in Michigan, it joined other corporations in an open letter advocating for a new state law to ban LGBTQ discrimination. Since 2015, General Motors has contributed $3,500 to five lawmakers in Arkansas who led LGBTQ-discrimination efforts and $3,250 to four such lawmakers in Mississippi.
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AT&T gave $127,500, and eight of those recipients were sponsors of the bill.Įlsewhere in the country, the same targeted community. Anheuser-Busch gave nearly $30,000 in donations to anti-LGBTQ politicians during that same period, and two of them sponsored that bill.
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Analysis of public records conducted by Corporate Accountability Action found that, since 2015, Coca-Cola had donated $3,200 to politicians who had taken a lead on anti-LGBTQ policies in that state, including one who sponsored the bill signed in May. To commemorate Pride Month and a decade since President Barack Obama repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the U.S. Bill Lee signed a law requiring businesses to post signs if they allowed transgender people to use their restrooms, sort of a fresh take on dehumanizing segregation signs. It was a huge issue - a lot of the gay white community second-guessed the Black Lives. This scenario occurs especially because large corporations, like Amazon and Walmart, donate to both sides of the aisle to maximize influence.Ĭorporations in general have faced criticism for years for using proximity to the LGBTQ community for marketing and credibility while engaging in apparently conflicting behaviors, also known as " Rainbow Capitalism." Related issues have been brought up when companies have declared support for Black Lives Matter.Take Tennessee, for example. In 2016, Black Lives Matter interrupted the Toronto Pride parade to protest police marching in the parade. "While we've always believed the more people who want to celebrate the better – a far cry from the early days of the parade - we also have taken the criticism to heart," it added, and decided to review its business partners and ask them to participate in a "diversity, equity, and inclusion survey and evaluation process."Īs Insider has reported, Amazon's corporate PAC had previously contributed over $460,000 in donations to politicians who voted against the Equality Act - which supports LGBTQ protections - when it came up for a vote in February 2021.