Contents:
- ‘A POLIL FIGHT OVER BEER’: THE 1977 COORS BEER BOYTT, AND THE RELATNSHIP BETWEEN LABOUR–GAY ALLIANC AND LGBT SOCIAL MOBILY
- AT COORS, A BREWING DILEMMA OVER GAY RIGHTS
- COORS COURTS GAYS
‘A POLIL FIGHT OVER BEER’: THE 1977 COORS BEER BOYTT, AND THE RELATNSHIP BETWEEN LABOUR–GAY ALLIANC AND LGBT SOCIAL MOBILY
'” Coors Light: “The f*** you are, ” wh pictur of both Bud Light’s special Pri edn and Coors Light’s history of backg the LGBTQ+ media advocy anizatn GLAAD has scribed Coors as “among the most progrsive for s employee polici toward gays” and noted that the pany has been advertisg gay papers sce the also claims to be the first brewer to adopt a non-discrimatn policy on sexual orientatn back Irony of Boyttg Bud LightSome people are tellg others to stop drkg Bud Light and start drkg Coors Light bee they thk Bud Light supports transgenr rights. LGBTQ+ media advocy anizatn GLAAD scribed Coors as "among the most progrsive for s employee polici toward gays" and had been advertisg gay publitns sce the has claimed was the first brewer to troduce a non-discrimatn policy on sexual orientatn 1975.
Rex Fuller, CEO of the Gay Lbian Bisexual and Transgenr Communy Center of Colorado, which aniz the para, told Axs Denver that no sponsors of the Denver Pri Para have exprsed ncern about potential backlash or cricism for their sponsorship of the event.
“We are a time perd when n be que fashnable some rners to pretty openly exprs homophobic, transphobic (sentiments) and racism, and I thk that n make this unfortable at some pots. This paper exam the 1977 Coors beer boytt, to analyse the terplay of soc-polil groups durg 1970s Ameri promotg the ia that labour and gay forc uld form an alliance over enomic disput that were mutually beneficial. By examg newspaper articl, tra unn pamphlets and visual inography, the paper highlights how labour forc ved the LGBT muny bee their bars were a powerful tool formg a gay inty and allowed LGBT nsumers to utilise their enomic agency.
AT COORS, A BREWING DILEMMA OVER GAY RIGHTS
[3] However, Lol 366 found an unlikely partner the gay muny of Ameri’s wt ast—particularly San Francis—urty of the Amerin Feratn of Labour and Congrs of Indtrial Organizatns (ALF-CIO) print, Gee Meany. [5] Due to the homophobic element to the polygraph tt, the workers’ dispute gaed a receptive LGBT dience gay bars when they removed the beer om their bars and backed Lol 366’s mpaign. By g the boytt as a se study to exame the terplay of soc-polil groups durg 1970s Ameri, this article promot the ia that, as nsequence of such allianc, labour and gay forc found an unlikely partner one other’s advocy.
Moreover, an examatn to newspaper articl, tra unn pamphlets and visual inography sheds light to how a narrative foced on a shared unrstandg of opprsn ran through both labour and gay forc; the opprsn they faced—albe over different grievanc—promoted a mutual rpect towards each other’s mpaign. The gay bars’ vatn to boytt Coors provid a platform to work tanm wh workers, who, like anti–Vietnam War protters, send-wave femists and Ain–Amerin activists, felt disadvantaged parison to the hegemony of the whe, middle-class heterosexual.
COORS COURTS GAYS
[10] D’E’s ground-breakg rearch, Sexual Polics and Sexual Communi, summarised how ‘the [gay] movement nstut a phase, albe a cisive one, of a much longer historil procs through which a group of men and women me to existence as a self-nsc, hive mory’.
[11] Armstrong go on to support this hypothis, by suggtg the gay protts regardg those arrted at Stonewall provid the talyst for the emergence of activist groups like the Gay Liberatn Front by 1970. Frank argu the emergence of a visible LGBT movement 1969 gmented a relatnship where some LGBT workers wished to nstct a labour–gay alliance to help llectively improve welfare polics for workers. [14] In the ntext of this paper, the inty that was nurtured the gay bars and the actns of those activists the 1950s, along wh ctomers’ abily to choose the alhol they drank based on LGBT polics rather than jt s price, was the drivg force mpaigng for the workers’ dispute wh Coors.
This article foc on the signifince of San Francis’s muny, particularly examg the impact gay bars had on this remarkably unrstudied event the history of twentieth-century Amerin sexualy. In dog so, highlights how those who equented gay bars me to acknowledge them as a place where dividual and a llective gay inti were nurtured, as well as a lotn for enablg gay ctomers to exercise their enomic ee-will. This sectn nsirs the key figur who helped orchtrate labour–gay teractns: Lol 366 head, Alan Braid, and the unofficial mayor of Castro, Harvey Milk (Castro refers to Castro Street, the most proment LGBT area San Francis).