And In Other News.. Coors Decides To Boycott Itself From 'Anit Gay' Family Member

(Denver, Colorado) Faced with the growing threat of a nationwide gay boycott, Coors Brewing Thursday distanced itself from family member and former chair Peter Coors the candidate for US Senate who supports a ban on same-sex marriage.

Calls for a new boycott of Coors began last week when the Republican Senate hopeful during a primary debate said he supported the proposed amendment to the US Constitution to ban gay marriage and praised its author, Colorado Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.

The boycott has already begun in Chicago where a bar owners group has taken out ads in local gay papers. (story)

In a statement issued Thursday by the company, Coors made it clear Peter Coors' views are his own and not those of the firm.

"We do not support discrimination against the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community, via legislation or otherwise," company CEO Leo Kiely said in a statement.

While Peter Coors may need the support of the extreme right wing of the GOP to secure the party's nomination in Saturday's primary, the company can ill afford another boycott.

Coors used to require job applicants to take a polygraph test in which they asked about their sexuality. Gays were not hired.

In 1978 gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk launched a boycott of Coors products over the polygraphs. The boycott spread across the country and cost the company millions.

Since then Coors has attempted to court the gay community. It extended benefits to the partners of gay workers and five years ago the company hired Mary Cheney to help it gain access to the gay market. Cheney left the company in 2000 to work on her father's campaign for Vice President.

Ironically it was Peter Coors who led the change within the company going so far as to promote Coors beer in person in gay bars.

Sources close to his Senate campaign say that political analysts told him he was seen as too liberal for many Republican supporters and if he wanted to win the nomination he would have to take a stronger stance against gay marriage.

Despite the company's disclaimer that Peter Coors does not speak for the company, the Coors company website featuring items to buy online still bears his picture and contains a message about safe drinking.

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/06/060404coors.htm

Interesting stuff. Especially in that bold paragraph :eek:

Regards,

Lee

I remember a few years back, when the boycott was still going on, I worked at a bar, and the Coors brewery sent a gay guy from Colorado to try to get us to buy their beer. His strategy was to pretend he and the company had no idea why the gay community wouldn't drink their beer, and when we explained it to him, he acted shocked and pretended he'd never heard any of these stories before.

He kept saying "But I'M gay , and they hired ME", and we kept telling him that simply because they'd managed to find a hansom gay Republican to try to get gay bars to sell their beer didn't mean anything, and the fact that they felt the need to hire a gay guy to go around and beg for our business was a bit more telling.

You know who else had that job? Mary Cheney. Before working for her father's campaign, she worked in the "get the fags to drink our beer" department at Coors. They actually have a department for that... which should tell you a bit more...