John,
Happy Father's Day to all, especially dad's like me excited to be celebrating post pandemic with family and friends. But just as Father's Day falls on the weekend celebrating Juneteenth this year, the whole month of June is also Pride, a celebration of everyone in our LGBTQ+ community.
Over the last several years, more and more corporations have embraced Pride celebrations, voicing public support for protecting equal rights and sponsoring celebration events, parade floats, and parties.
That would be great news, if these corporations walked the walk instead of just talking the talk. Because when it comes to truly supporting the LGBTQ+ community with concrete measures, very few corporations go beyond pride-colored products and cliche phrases to help -- and many of them actually do the opposite.
Take AT&T, one of the worst offenders.
While their social media pages are decorated for Pride, they donated $204,350 to 133 anti-LGBTQ legislators, including $56,295 to Mitch McConnell’s 2020 campaign -- and while he was actively blocking the Equality Act.
Walmart gave $150,000 to McConnell and other GOP senators and American Airlines donated $46,617 to Mitch McConnell’s 2020 campaign.
Actions speak louder than words: Demand these corporations put their money where their mouth is and stop all donations to any politicians that actively work to harm the LBGTQ+ community.
The list of hypocrisy goes on, from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, to Lowe’s, and Microsoft these corporations all claim to be against laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but then turn around and donate money to anti-LBGTQ+ politicians like Mitch McConnell.
These corporations have been doing it for years.
In 2016, when North Carolina passed a law that discriminated based on sexual orientation and gender identity, many of these corporations decried the action in public while still bankrolling the hateful politicians who voted for it.
Companies need to do more than place the rainbow flag on their products and pages – especially when the LGBTQ+ community is under attack by Republicans across the country.
This has to stop. Demand these corporations stop pinkwashing and end all donations to any politicians that actively work to harm the LBGTQ+ community immediately.
Thank you for standing united for action today!
In solidarity,
— Tre
Tre Graves
Campaign Organizer
Democracy for America
