Via Towleroad…
Idaho Bar Refuses To Sell Pepsi, MillerCoors Over Gay Support
Citing their Christian faith, Mike and Mari Fuller, owners of the Waha Bar & Grill in Idaho, say they will no longer sell Pepsi or MillerCoors beer because of those companies’ ties to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
Their online menu, as of my writing this, reads in part…
While we believe in the importance of voting at the booth on Election Day, we also believe in voting with the dollars we spend. We are Christians who do not believe in supporting the goals and the politicians who support the goals of the NGLCC. Please consider becoming a conscientious consumer and join with us in requesting that the companies listed below redirect their charitable contributions toward non-divisive, non-political entities and charities such as cancer research, heart disease, or fighting world hunger.
Thank you for your understanding,
Mike and Mari Fuller, owners
Others have pointed out that at least some of the products they still Do carry also support gay civil rights and marriage equality. But the first thing that struck my inner Baptist boy about this story was…er…wait…this is a bar for goodness sakes.
The household I grew up in had no car, and when I was very young we took the bus to our downtown shopping excursions, and then walked my little legs off. I remember, and I am not kidding and not exaggerating, how my Baptist grandmother would point out the bars along our way and tell me that the devil lived inside them.
Time passes, the universe expands, I eventually became a teenager and fell off the wagon the instant some high school friends of mine gave me my first taste of illegal (for my age) rum and Coke. Liked It! I’m a middle-aged gay man now with a taste for sugary cordials and fine tequilas. But I still count that distrust of the pleasures of the bottle as one of the pluses of the religious training I got way back when. It’s that little bird perched on my shoulder whenever I am miserable and depressed, telling me that there is no path to happiness in a bottle. I’d Like A Drink is fine. I Need A Drink is…ooooohhh…then you don’t get one Bruce Albert Garrett…
Unlike a reflexive distrust of sex and sexuality, a reflexive distrust of alcohol actually has something to be said for it. Alcoholism, unlike homosexuality, actually does cause health and social problems. And there is a pretty well known period in the history of this country of massive Christian opposition to the making and selling of alcohol on those grounds. So…look…Mike, Mari…I appreciate your right to carry whatever products you choose, for whatever reason you want. But…seriously…I don’t think the Christian Women’s Temperance Union would approve of your line of work. Don’t you know how destructive alcohol is to the family and society?
