Sometimes it's really important for the LGBT Community (I know, but I needed to make a blanket statement here) to acknowledge, as we often do here at the Great Orange Satan, that we have allies (here, who like us and love us) who do a lot to support our fight for full equality.The good folks over at Queerty (some of the site might be NSFW but this page isn't) have made a list (it's not a slide show) of 36 companies who have at least altered their Facebook pages to celebrate Pride, and, in at least one case, to celebrate the decisions of the Sume Court regarding marriage equality.
And for the 1000-word picture, I give you the people over at Anheuser-Busch:
What else are companies doing? General Mills has launched a #LuckyToBe campaign using the rainbow colored marshmallows in Lucky Charms cereal.
Red Bull has the equality graphic made of Red Bull cans. Facebook has a new rainbow emoticon, and Google lights up the search bar with a rainbow if you look for "gay" or "queer" or "lesbian" or "Stonewall" and other words associated with this celebration. AT&T has an image and GLAAD is working with Google+ (do any of you actually use Google+?) to launch a #ProudToLove campaign - I don't think they were at Castro Street Wednesday night. Nike has rainbow-colored Just Do It shirts, Instagram set up a special page to document the events of the week. Oreo cookies posted this to their Facebook page:
American Apparel has pride themed t-shirts that are finally trans-inclusive. And here's Grey Poupon. Honestly, this I didn't expect, although I should have.
Also Banana Republic (the equality sign is made with shirts and the hashtag is #BRLove4All) and Hanes with a photograph of a rainbow made from undergarments. Mastercard bought sponsored tweets directed toward anyone who looked for #gaymarriage. And Chase Bank, and Macy's (this is why they had to rename all their stores "Macy's" so they could do this nationally). And lots and lots of other people, including the White House:
Of course it's all pandering. But I spent the years between 1972 and 1993 working in advertising and it was pretty much only the beer companies, and ESPECIALLY Coors because they knew we were boycotting them because of the contributions the Coors family was making to groups like the Heritage Foundation, that pandered. In a way, this is progress! I can't really get annoyed at the ways in which corporate America decides to commemorate this. And it's Friday night when I'd usually post a history diary, so something fluffy this time.
I might even go out and get a six-pack of Bud Light. Maybe when the temperature drops below 90.