Corporations and Pride Month
Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Sometimes both.
Axios (” Corporate America’s commitment to Pride Month under scrutiny“):
Corporate America’s commitment to LGBTQ+ causes, messages and products is under an intense spotlight during Pride Month this year.
Why it matters: Companies like Target and Bud Light — which both caved after right-wing backlashes to LGBTQ-themed products and promotions — suddenly face extreme pressure after years of supporting Pride events without issue.
- They’re trying to delicately two-step their way through the vitriol, but consumers increasingly want them to take a stand with conviction.
The big picture: In the past, companies have been accused of “rainbow washing” — using Pride imagery and promotions to signal an otherwise half-hearted commitment to LGBTQ+ issues.
- “From a corporate point of view, it was basically costless,” University of Michigan marketing professor Erik Gordon tells Axios. “They spend more money on donuts.”
- But this year is different.
- “Now it’s becoming more costly,” Gordon says. “Now we’re going to see who is actually committed to Pride causes.”
Zoom in: Recent events have illustrated the gravity of the moment.
- Anheuser-Busch InBev drew right-wing hate for sponsoring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney — and then a backlash from LGBTQ+ rights proponents for the way it handled the fallout.
- Target angered certain right-wing customers for selling a Pride Month collection that included a transgender-friendly swimsuit — and then faced a backlash from the LGBTQ+ community when it pulled some of the items from the shelves, citing the need to keep its workers safe from violent customers.
- Republican presidential candidate and Gov. Ron DeSantis is warring with Disney over its commitment to LGBTQ+ inclusion, attempting to strip the company of its tax district rights in the Orlando area.
What they’re saying: “What we’re seeing entering Pride Month is that companies have to make a decision whether they’re going to keep to their corporate values of LGBTQ inclusion or cave to a fringe but loud, anti-LGBTQ organized effort to silence us,” GLAAD chief communications officer Rich Ferraro tells Axios.
- “We need them to double down on their values,” RaShawn “Shawnie” Hawkins, the Human Rights Campaign’s director of workplace equality, tells Axios in an email. “It does not make good business sense to back away and let bullies run their business for them.”
Context: Conservative opponents have introduced more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills throughout the country so far this year, aiming at everything from transgender rights to book bans and health care restrictions, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
- Pride organizers are canceling events in Florida and civil rights groups have issued travel warnings after several anti-LGBTQ bills were signed into law by DeSantis. were signed into law by DeSantis.
Yes, but: GLAAD hasn’t noticed a downtick in corporate commitments to Pride Month, Ferraro says.
- “It’s a different Pride Month,” he says. “The visibility that we normally celebrate during Pride Month has now been met with threats of violence — and real corporate allies are going to stand with us.”
Target and AB InBev have said they’re still committed to celebrating Pride.
- “Our focus now is on moving forward with our continuing commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community and standing with them as we celebrate Pride Month and throughout the year,” a Target spokesperson says.
- Starbucks unveiled an advertisement in India featuring a father and his transgender daughter as part of its #ItStartsWithYourName campaign.
- Other brands — from The North Face to Jack Daniels — have enlisted well-known drag queens in marketing campaigns.
Worth noting: Americans want companies to go all in or do nothing at all when it comes to social issues, according to a recent Axios Harris Poll survey.
- 68% of Americans say companies and brands should only speak out when it pertains to their business interests or clearly stated values. This is a bipartisan belief, with 8 in 10 Republicans and 6 in 10 Democrats agreeing.
The problem for companies is that in some cases, they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
- “A lot of companies just want to stay out of the spotlight,” the University of Michigan’s Gordon says. “They don’t want to be forced to take a stand because no matter which stand they take, people who oppose that stand will attack them.”
Bloomberg (“Companies Forced to Plan Differently for Pride This Year“):
Pride month is often a time of celebration. Yet this time around, US brands are mindful of a backlash that has already begun.
Kohl’s, Target and The North Face have faced calls for boycotts from anti-LGBTQ groups after they unveiled their Pride campaigns. Of those retailers, Target removed some LBGTQ-themed merchandise from its store shelves, saying it wanted to protect employees after “confrontational behavior” by customers that included displays being destroyed.
The Los Angeles Dodgers meanwhile disinvited a LGBTQ advocacy group from its upcoming Pride night celebration after a bishop accused it of mocking Catholicism — but then re-invited them once other organizations dropped out in solidarity. And Anheuser Busch InBev is still weathering calls from conservatives to boycott its Bud Light brand after it partnered with TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney for an unrelated March Madness promotion in April.
Pride collections in stores as accessible as Target can serve as an entry point for representation, and shoppers often seek out merchandise and rainbow-hued clothing to wear to Pride events across the world. Yet the tensions this year have reflected growing anti-LGBTQ resistance; in the political sphere, US Republican lawmakers have introduced at least 491 anti-LGBTQ bills and passed 62 of them into law.
Even something as innocuous as a Pride-themed coffee mug can be a lightning rod for conservative outcry — and LGBTQ groups are paying attention to the response.
“Companies need to walk the walk with this community,” said Dan Dimant, the media director at NYC Pride, the nonprofit that produces the annual Pride march in New York City. “The public will find out and the public will hold them accountable. It’s no longer a free cash grab.”
Brands with Pride campaigns have mobilized in different ways. The North Face turned comments off the Instagram posts announcing their second-annual Summer of Pride partnership with the drag queen Pattie Gonia, and in a statement said it stands by the effort to build “a more inclusive outdoor community.”
The retailer Abercrombie & Fitch unveiled a campaign that says that Pride is year-round, and Macy’s said it is committed to its Pride campaigns. Both also made donations to The Trevor Project, a mental-health nonprofit that focuses on LGBTQ youth. For its part, Target is still listed as a “platinum” sponsor for NYC Pride, whose marquee events occur June 22-25 in New York City. (Some nonprofits observe their official Pride in October, given that National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11)
Sticking by the campaigns and their LGBTQ consumers may also help companies prove that their efforts are more than corporate pinkwashing.
“These corporations are really, really powerful,” said Motti, a social media and communications lead at the LGBTQ-owned clothing company For Them. “They have a lot of sway, and they need to be able to put their hand up and say, ‘This is what we believe in. This is what we want to do.’”
CNN Business (“Pride Month was once an easy win for brands. Now, the stakes are much higher“):
Companies have long embraced Pride Month in June as an uncomplicated way to market to members of the LGBTQ+ community while telegraphing progressive values. But this year won’t be nearly so straightforward.
In recent weeks, two major brands, Target (TGT) and Bud Light, were targeted by right-wing media and on social platforms for relatively small LGBTQ+ initiatives: Bud Light’s Instagram partnership with a trans influencer, and a subset of Target (TGT)’s line of goods marketed to trans customers and allies.
Right-wing commentators, politicians and others called for boycotts, and the brands’ employees were threatened with violence. In both cases, the companies seemed cowed: The CEO of Bud Light owner Anheuser-Busch (BUD) released a vague statement calling for unity and Target pulled items from shelves. Both brands say they continue to support the LGBTQ+ community: Bud Light on Tuesday announced a donation to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce in support of LGBTQ+ owned small businesses, and Target has continued selling much of its Pride merchandise in stores.
But the backtracking shows that backlash and threats could create a chilling effect for companies, and leave them without a clear path forward.
Executives “are becoming much more skittish about taking these stands and making strong statements,” said Daniel Korschun, associate professor of marketing at Drexel University. “The pendulum is swinging a bit back … toward a more conservative approach, where they’ll be less vocal.”
Although support for gay rights has increased over the years, gaining acceptance among most Americans, trans acceptance is a more contentious issue. About 43% of adults said society had “gone too far” when it comes to accepting people who are transgender, according to a March survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Norc. About 33% said society “has not gone far enough,” with 23% saying society has reacted “about right.” When it comes to accepting people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, a smaller percentage -— 29% -— said society had “gone too far.”
Campaigns that may have been considered low-risk are now drawing ire from public figures who oppose trans rights along with their supporters, creating a PR mess that may hurt sales. Backing away — rather than quelling the negative reactions — has dismayed the very demographic the campaigns were supposed to reach and may close avenues for future inclusive marketing efforts.
“Allyship is sometimes uncomfortable,” and businesses are learning that, said Jared Todd, press secretary of the Foundation at the Human Rights Campaign, which maintains the Corporate Equality Index, a measure of companies’ LGBTQ+ practices. “I don’t think people realize that quite enough.”
The controversy isn’t new, of course. Pride marches have been a thing for decades and President Clinton first proclaimed Pride Month back in 1999. Boycotts have been going on since pretty much the beginning.* And companies have been accused of cashing in on the celebration without a true commitment to the cause for years.** But, rather clearly, the heat has been turned up this year, with the level of outrage over corporations doing what they’ve been doing for quite some time ratcheted up significantly.
That’s clearly not an organic phenomenon. It’s part and parcel of the stoking of outage in the culture wars by the right-wing infotainment complex and, increasingly, the politicians themselves. Not shockingly, outrage has led to violence, or at least threats of the same. It should go without saying that this has no place in a democratic society.
At the same time, corporations and other non-political entities taking sides in politicized controversies is also rather odd. Do InBev (a global behemoth headquartered in Belgium) and Target Corporation really care about LGBTQ+ issues, aside from its impact on their bottom line? For that matter, so long as their actions aren’t harmful to people, why should we care? They make beer and sell dry goods; they’re not political parties.
I suppose one could argue that Pride celebrations aren’t political at all. But of course they are. The first Pride march was held a year after the Stonewall riots and the movement slowly grew to something much bigger and more amorphous. It is and always has been about affecting political and social change. Indeed, were LGBTQ+ rights not in controversy, the whole thing would be rather silly: there’s a reason we don’t have Straight Pride Month, White History Month, or International Men’s Day.
When InBev subsidiary Aneheiser Busch goes out of its way to take sides in the culture wars, it really shouldn’t be shocked that there’s a backlash from those one the other side. They have, of course, picked the winning side. But it strikes me that, if they actually care about LBTBQ+ rights, surely a company with operations in Russia, the UAE, South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Eswatini, Namibia, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe could do something more meaningful than putting rainbows on beer cans.
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*See, for example, “U.S. corporations bolstering gay pride” (NBC News, 2005); “Big Business Increasingly Supports Gay Rights” (HBR, 2012); “Rainbow-colored Oreo a harbinger of more gay advertising” (WaPo, 2012)
**See, for example, “Target Corporation Message to LGBT Community: We Won’t Make it Right” (Human Rights Campaign, 2010); “How Corporations are Profiting from Gay Pride” (US News, 2012); “These Corporations Have All Been Accused Of Hating Gays” (Business Insider, 2012); “Dear Corporate America, leave our LGBTQ Pride celebrations alone” (Mashable, 2017); “Pride for Sale” (WaPo, 2019); “Corporate America gets on the Pride parade, and it’s appreciated, but also complicated” (USA Today, 2019); “What Big Business’s Embrace of Pride Month Really Means” (WSJ, 2021);
Like Cheerios shouldn’t have been surprised (back in 2013) that its ad featuring an interracial family would lead to a racist backlash?
“Oh well, so predictable. Even if I regret it personally, that’s what a company gets for going woke. They should have simply stayed out of politics and not shown an interracial couple.”
Same energy, man.
Was Cheerios showing an interracial couple really “rather odd” (your words) back in 2013?
Is it reasonable for companies to take racist sensibilities into account in their marketing to the general public?
Nice, this writeup was typically thoughtful and sober.
Corporate actors are now and have always been deeply involved in American politics, donating huge sums of money and lobbying both public opinion and legislators.
Don’t know exactly who “we” is meant to reference, but queer people should care in order to be clear about who can be relied upon and who cannot, who are real allies and who are fake ones. Many gays have complained for years that certain entities, including certain corporations, were fairweather allies — particularly critiquing their Pride presence. To be most effective at pushing for political and social progress, gays and their allies have to be cautious about relationships, partnerships, and resource-allocation. For practical purposes, wobbly allies need to be triaged back, and maybe sometimes cut loose.
Real corporate allies already do this, hence why ‘we’ need clarity on who they are.
@DK:
All corporate entities are fair-weather allies.
Even so, I would take “fair-weather ally” over “no ally at all.”
Not so long ago, I was in a shitty bar with a (very) shitty beer selection. Under such circumstances, I would almost certainly take the “gay” beer over the “manly man with a fast car” beer.
Fact is, diversity sells. And that’s why corporations (sometimes) promote it.
It is a no win solution and corporations are not known for or expected to be brave.
Tangentially, a similar controversy is going about a judge who has a pride flag just outside her court. She originally had it inside her court along side the Texas and US flags. Inevitably, someone filed a complaint.
In the comments section, someone asked “Why do the gays get an entire month? The most interesting responses resulted in a listing of the entire universe of memorialization (official and unofficial) of various groups and people:
In no particular order:
Black History Month
Hispanic History Month
Mexican – Diez y seis de Septiembre, Cinco de Mayo
MLK and Juneteenth
Military – Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Armed Forces Day
Laborers
Christians – Christmas and Easter
Pot Smokers – 4/20
Irish
Italians
Pilgrims
Everyone – New Years Day
I sure there are more but the point is that celebrating one group is not excluding anyone else, it seems there is something for everyone.
@drj: Whoa. James said companies should have expected backlash. He didn’t say they shouldn’t celebrate pride month. It’s not a St. Patrick’s Day promotion, or an Easter Bunny ad, virtually risk free. If they are going to wade into the culture wars they have to be willing to stand up to the puritanical bigots. Once they’ve taken a stand, suddenly deciding become uninvolved is actually siding with the bigots.
@drj: So, no, Cheerios shouldn’t have been surprised. But 2013 was, notably, almost a half-century after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Loving v. Virginia. At that point, it was a relatively minor fringe who was going to protest. If they had done the same thing in 1966, the backlash would have been considerably more robust. And, indeed, they did not do so.
I think there is a significant difference between a retailer selling to and acknowledging all of its customers on the one hand and letting some of group of its customers try to bully it into not selling to or acknowledging some other customers on the other hand. I don’t personally need anymore rainbow gear, but why should I care what the guy behind me has in his cart or that you have it available to him or advertise it to him? I am never buying Bud Light on any day for any reason, but if others want it, I am not going to bully or shame the package store for advertising and selling it.
I suppose there might be a point where I would not shop at a store that featured an entire line of White Supremiscists ‘R Us gear.
BTW, I was today years old when I learned that Eswatini is the current name of what I knew as Swaziland.
@MarkedMan:
Well…
I read that (not uncharitably, I think) as “corporations should stay out of politics.”
@drj:
Really, it’s two things. First, if they get into politics, they shouldn’t be shocked at a backlash. Second, that I don’t know why anyone cares what the politics (as opposed to, say, the labor policies) of massive corporations are.
I don’t have any desire to read the now-rote statements from corporate PR teams every time there’s some incident in the news. Similarly, I don’t give a damn what my kids’ principal has to say about said incidents. It’s meaningless, performative, and divisive.
@James Joyner:
You say that like it’s a bad thing, i.e., “To preserve social harmony, corporations shouldn’t offend the bigots.”
That’s giving a heckler’s veto to the worst of us. What’s desirable about that?
And, yes, it’s performative, but that doesn’t make it meaningless. It normalizes certain behaviors (including interracial marriage) that bigots dislike. That is something that should be welcomed – even if corporations ultimately do it to make a buck.
Whataboutism (“if they actually care about LBTBQ+ rights, surely…”) is never a very strong counterargument.
Many people in this discussion seem to be making the mistake of thinking that publicly-traded corporations might be “actually committed to Pride causes”.
Corporations are actually committed to profit for their shareholders. It’s up to the directors to figure out whether they get more profit by supporting LGBTQ+ causes or bashing them, or sitting quietly on the fence. Given that about 10% of Americans are LGBTQ+(*), and roughly half of the remainder are supportive these days (with the trend strongly toward increasing support), it’s pretty easy to see how this plays out eventually. Purely for profit.
(*) Gallup polling of self-identification has gone up from about 3% to more than 7% in the past 50 years. I’m extrapolating to the limit when stigma is no longer a factor. If anything, I suspect I’m underestimating the eventual B population in a world where that’s almost the default.
@drj:
Not all. Starbucks, for all its flaws and its union debacles, has been known to tell rightwing critics to pound sand on certain issues. Schulz famously told conservative Starbucks shareholders that they should sell their stock if they didn’t like Starbucks pushing certain liberal causes, he was a plausible potential Democratic candidate for a moment for this. And there are others.
@DrDaveT: If, as you say, it is profitable due to pro-gay demographic and social trends, then being committed to Pride causes and being committed to profit are the same thing, not mutually exclusive.
@DrDaveT:
This, exactly. Companies “align” themselves with St. Paddy’s day, or Presidents Day or Cinco de Mayo not because they are “allies” to ethnic groups or because their values align with the founding fathers but instead do it as a method of gaining advertising attention. Nothing wrong with that. They are free to have a Shramrock Shake one year and scrap it the next, and no one will interpret it as abandoning the Irish. But Target advertising execs assumed that the LGBTQ+ community was at the same point as the Mexican or Irish American community. They, living in some big city somewhere, thought no one gave a hoot except the community itself and friends and relatives, and it would move more merchandise during a slow month. But once they did make it an event, backing away from it in the face of bigotry actually does provide support for the bigots.
Later this month my team, the Orioles, will have Pride day. It didn’t fall on one of the days my wife and I had tickets for so we switched so we could attend. Normally, I’m fairly oblivious to the various promotional nights the team has. I figure the marketing department is tasked with goosing attendance at pretty much every game and that’s one of the ways they do it. If veterans or active military or little leaguers or teachers have a special night while we are there, good for them and I hope they have a good time, and although I’m a supporter of them I don’t feel any need to show that by attending that specific game. But given everything that’s been going on in the country we figured we should do our small part to make sure the attendance is as high as it can be. If the Orioles had never had a pride night I wouldn’t have cared, but since they do they have an obligation to not give in to the bigots.
If you ran a restaurant in the south in 1968, you had a choice to make. Serve Blacks? Don’t serve Blacks? There is no avoiding politics in polarized times. It gets complicated for nationwide, retail level companies like Target or Budweiser. On the one hand, there is no number of bigoted Karens and unhinged Oath Keepers able to seriously harm Target long term. OTOH, corporations squeal like stuck pigs at any downturn, even when it’s a blip.
In the end there is no opt-out for morality. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and if corporations are people too, then they are stuck with the same moral dilemmas as any other person. There’s no Budweiser AI making decisions, it’s not random or impersonal, there are people, directors, CEO’s, actual human beings who make these decisions and they are held to the same moral standard as anyone else. They are responsible for their choices. Target and Budweiser have behaved immorally by backing down. It was also fucking stupid as it signaled a weakness that other interests can exploit. Weakness invites attack.
@DK:
I don’t think I said anything to imply otherwise. It’s a good thing — but it shouldn’t be mistaken for an ethical stance. Not even for Starbucks.
I’m reminded of a YouTube video that I cannot place, discussing diversity in films and the complaint that it is “political.”
So, paraphrasing someone who probably said it better: Of course it’s political. And not having a diverse cast is also political.
The LGBTQIA+ community is together about 10-15% of the population. That’s not an insignificant number — it’s ballpark about as many Black folks. They have their little Pride month. A retail corporation* either notes it and acknowledges it, and markets towards it, or they don’t. And both actions are very political.
Wal-Mart has a Pride collection.
——
*: And a corporation that hires a lot of Unix administrators tries to figure out how to signal that they are pro-furry, as somehow half of all Unix administrators are furries, and so they want to hire the furries.
““A lot of companies just want to stay out of the spotlight,” the University of Michigan’s Gordon says. “They don’t want to be forced to take a stand because no matter which stand they take, people who oppose that stand will attack them.””
I call BS on this. Show me an example of a company that has simply conducted business as usual during June being met with “attacks”, violent or otherwise. Can anyone?
Yes, companies that CLAIM to stand for Pride but then back down when faced with financial repercussions are called to task for failing to walk the walk… as they ought to be. But I don’t see angry gays charging through stores and knocking over racks that contain the same products they contained in May.
The first Pride Parades were an explicit battle of wills between the Queer community and the police: holding an unlicensed parade and daring the police to try and stop it
Should recall also that the boycott has been recently faddish on a certain set of RWNJs. There are some who just discovered Chik-fil-A has a diversity office (for 5 years!) and are proposing boycotting even them.
@Kazzy: This a million times. There is no equivalent to Matt Walsh on the left. Certainly not someone who has the ear of large portions of the media (and is now the darling of Elon Musk, because nothing says caring person like embracing a hater). Now you are damned for having diversity policies. Walsh is a smarter, far more hateful version of Anita Bryant.
@DrDaveT:
Meh. It can be both. Not everything is either/or, black vs white.
I’m pretty cynical but I have some limits, thank goodness.
@SenyorDave: Is Walsh more hateful than Anita Bryant, or just better at being hateful? I think we’ve made great gains in productivity in the hatemonger industry.
I can only hope that the benefits of this increased productivity are being shared with the workers, and aren’t being entirely swallowed by those who control the channels of communication. We need less rent-seeking and more rewarding labor in all industries, including the hate industry.
I think we need to up the game this year in the War on Christmas. Destroy displays, threaten retail workers, etc.
Oh noes, the seasonal display area has rainbows! It’s rainbow season. BBQ season is later, then Back To School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, inventory, Valentine’s Day, etc. I expect Rainbow Season to be pushed aside a bit for Juneteenth.
@DK: Thanks for that. I can let my inner cynic run away with me.
A good illustration of the hazards of trying to be apolitical. 30 years ago a Baltimore local opened up Cafe Hon, inspired more by John Waters than anything else. (If you don’t know John Waters, suffice it to say that there is no question that he is not anti-LGBTQ+). She started Hon Fest and said no politics just fun. She decided this year that Planned Parenthood fell under politics and, well, check the link for what happened
@Gustopher: I think he is more hateful, and much better at monetizing that hate. I think he’s a true believer who is good at figuring out what parts of hate sell. Right now it is tapping into the backlash of people who haven’t been able to freely bully lgbtq+ folks for some time. He’ll eventually move on to another target if this one taps out. Anita Bryant was hateful, but more a product of the time.
@DK:
Maybe. Within the strictures of fiduciary responsibilities etc. I just wouldn’t assume that.
I’m not being cynical here. The law specifies who the Board of Directors is responsible to, and for what. For publicly-traded corporations, there isn’t that much leeway. Privately owned companies like Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby have more discretion — for better and worse.
I worked for about 40 years as an engineer in high tech, starting in 1970, when my gay coworkers were pretty much closeted. Over the years, as our culture made a transfomation toward recognizing that there was this huge pool of talent already on the payroll, things like adding insurance coverage for same sex partners quietly started happening to keep from losing valuable employees and to be able to hire more and more talent that was having more and more options among cooperative employers. This was happening well before same sex marriage was legally mandated nationally. Being able to attract and retain talent is a survival issue for corporations. Culture war fanatics do not change that. They just make the whole process of making a profit messier.
A second point. In retirement, I mentor high school students making robots and running them in competitions (not battlebots). I spent this weekend with 64 teams from across the Northeast and the midwest, amounting to thousands of high school students, most of whom will become engineers employed by the corporations I mentioned before. While they discussed the best motors, gearboxes, navigation software, and game piece manipulation techniques, they were flying Every flavor of pride flags on the playing field, on their robots, in their hair, and in their workshops in the pits. Every team, everywhere you looked. No culture wars in evidence.
@James Joyner:
I’m sorry, but this strains credulity a bit. You don’t know why Ron DeSantis has made his war on Disney a centerpiece of his political life? You don’t know why wannabe right-wing video influences post videos of themselves using Bud Lite bottles for target practice?
For modern Republican politics to work, the rage machine must constantly be fed. To succeed in GOP politics, politicians have to take positions that are ever more detached from reality. I’m pretty sure you know these things.
Many of the rank and file go directly to where they have been led – e.g. caring very much what the politics of massive corporations are, and being enraged by them.
@anjin-san: So, I literally wrote, “That’s clearly not an organic phenomenon. It’s part and parcel of the stoking of outage in the culture wars by the right-wing infotainment complex and, increasingly, the politicians themselves” in the OP.
My point is that InBev and Target are massive corporations that don’t organically have political positions aside from an interest in protecting their profits. They’re not even in the same class of big chains like Chic-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby where the founder still sets an agenda. So, I don’t give them any credit for virtue-signaling nor do I have any sympathy when it backfires.