You might be confusing the fact that non-profit organizations are banned in the US by the IRS from endorsing candidates or engaging in political campaigns. Outside of those organizations, politics has always been intertwined with sports, with the performing arts, with extracurriculars (e.g. Scouting and nature hobbyist activities), schooling, businesses in unrelated domains (e.g. the outpouring of businesses in support for renewing the Voting Rights Act 20 years ago, musicians against the Vietnam war/Iraq war), and so on and so on.
The only people who do not get politically entangled with politics are ones who are used to politics leaving them alone.
You seem to be conflating this fact with the so-called "fad" of leveraging decisions for clout in an overtly partisan context.
I have a bit of a crisis of conscience about this stuff. On one hand, especially with the oppression the LGTBQ+ community continues to face worldwide; any and all additional awareness and acceptance we can get is obviously so important.
On the other hand, it's obviously pandering, and a lot of these companies that fly the flag during Pride month have serious issues within their companies like fair treatment of employees, or whatever-have-you.
I'm actually more grateful, I think; for mandatory sensitivity training modules in most corporate businesses these days that essentially explain flat-out that homophobia and transphobia is not tolerated, and also help people who might genuinely not fully even know about things like proper usage of pronouns for trans people, for people who identify as gender neutral, etc.
My Dad is one of those homophobic/transphobic Christian nuts who thinks it's cool to use the name of God in order to belittle us, etc - he actually disowned me for a year when he found out I was transgender.
But - he had to undergo some sensitivity training through Microsoft, where he works - and eventually told me he had to work with transgender people at a couple points.
It helped him come around and decide to treat me like a person, too. So that kind of thing clearly helps, and I think it's awesome that companies are legitimately proactive on LGTBQ+ issues - not just during Pride month. :)
link to the related meme (I think it's actually pretty HN-suited): https://shorturl.at/aioqM
What about the 1970s when some bars stopped serving Coors to protest of the company's anti-labor and anti-LGBT policies? ("As late as 2019, Coors beer was difficult to find in any gay bar in San Francisco." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coors_strike_and_boycott )
Or 1969 when the AMS decided to move the spring meeting from Chicago to Cincinnati, in response to the brutal police attacks on political protestors during the 1968 DNC meeting? https://books.google.com/books?id=UnkYqxyWGz8C&pg=PA88&dq=mo...
Or even earlier in the 1960s when MLK proposed a boycott on Mississippi products? Quoting https://books.google.com/books?id=qcADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA50&dq=%2...
> When millionaire Flint merchant Joseph Megell, 51, short, stocky aggressive president of 'Yankee Stores, Inc., announced that his buyers would boycott Mississippi-made products, he hoped that other large buyers of Mississippi goods would follow suit. Megdell, whose 18 stores, located in eight Michigan cities gross millions annually, launched the boycott because of the "ugly racial situation" in the state.
For a country that likes to jerk itself off about being the epitome of ‘freedom’, they sure do like to tell people what to do.
A country where I can get a gun without a background check - but potentially be arrested for an abortion - is the definition of ‘fucked up priorities’.
Saddening recent events have only proven this is more true than ever.
However - here's where safety comes in. As a queer/trans woman, I don't particularly feel safe (at all, really) in the southern states (California excluded, I guess?) - Florida and Texas, especially.
People are actively, regularly violent towards LGTBQ+ people down there. And, of course - it's not the ban - it's the attitude behind it - and the people behind it who are dangerous, and are often violent people with guns.
I've rejected a handful of paid business travel opportunities because they were either in Texas or Florida. It's not worth it on the chance I run into some psychotic anti-gay Christian and their gun, demanding I get the hell out of their city...again. (Yes, this has already actually happened to me...)
