From: MPetrelis@aol.com Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 20:03:36 EST Subject: Boycott Coors Fact Sheet. PLEASE RE-POST AN URGENT APPEAL TO L/G/B/T/ PEOPLE REGARDING THE COORS BOYCOTT: The recent tragic murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming happened in a political and social climate rife with homophobia. Major funding for right wing politicians and organizations responsible for polluting the American conscience with rabid intolerance comes in various ways from the Adolph Coors Brewing Company, its subsidiaries and Coors family members. How many more Matthew Shepards will we lose as a result of the campaign of hate against us, financed in large part by Coors? We are distressed gay entities appear ignorant of community-wide support for the Coors boycott and how it started twenty years ago with the help of Harvey Milk. In the wake of Shepard's death and the twentieth anniversary of Milk's assassination this November, now is the ideal time to recommit ourselves to the ongoing Coors boycott. OUR PROPOSALS o GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, must return the $100,000 it recently accepted from Coors. GLAAD is supposed to be our leading organization monitoring homo-hating media and corporations, not prostituting itself to a major funder of oppression; o Witeck-Combs Communications, a gay public relations firm, must cancel its consulting contract with Coors; o Members of the International Lesbian Gay Pride Coordinators Association must stop accepting Coors money to finance our local Pride Celebrations; o Bars and restaurants everywhere which cater to the Queer community must immediately stop serving Coors products; o Coors must issue an apology to the Queer community for all of the harm its right wing funding practices have caused us in the past twenty years. OUR FACTS Several years' worth of I.R.S. 990 tax returns for the Adolph Coors Foundation and its subsidiary Castle Rock Foundation, along with investigative news accounts, reveal the following disturbing donations and details: o $150,000 annually given to the Free Congress Foundation - Cofounded by Joseph Coors in 1973, its extreme anti-gay activities include filing an amicus brief with Hawaii State Supreme Court opposing same-sex marriage saying it was against "nature's law and nature's God." Castle Rock Foundation has contributed almost one million dollars to the Free Congress Foundation, and the former has extended a $900,000 loan, with a 6 percent rate, to the latter; o $100,000 annually donated to the Heritage Foundation - Cofounded in 1973 by Joseph Coors. Leaders of Oregon Citizens Alliance and Coloradans for Family Values boasted they received legal advice for the anti-gay initiatives Measure 9 and Amendment 2 from the Heritage Foundation. Castle Rock Foundation has endowed almost one million dollars to the Heritage Foundation; o $98,500 to the Western Journalism Center - An August 23, 1998, Rocky Mountain News story documented Coors donated to the center, which is run by notorious homophobe Joseph Farah. Farah wrote in his October 30, 1997, column for his web site: "Homosexuals die precariously young -- not just because of the self-inflicted AIDS virus or prejudice against them, but because of a thousand different illnesses and deadly lifestyle choices they make during the course of their lives. Not only that but the promotion and acceptance of homosexuality as an equally valid alternative tends to destroy entire societies, according to a sweeping and persuasive research effort . . . . Every time homosexuality is embraced, it eventually consumes the culture." o $50,000 to the Center for Popular Culture - Publisher of the virulently anti-gay monthly publication Heterodoxy; o $50,000 to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - This organization of conservative state legislators promotes anti-gay and regressive HIV legislation; o $50,000 to the Promise Keepers - A conservative men's advocacy group; o $40,000 to GOP candidates - According the October 15, 1998, San Francisco Bay Times newspaper, campaign "finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission document that Coors' campaign money continues to flow almost exclusively to the most conservative, homophobic wing of the Republican Party . . . . Through August, Coors Brewing Co. had donated $40,000 to assorted Republican congressional campaign committees and none to Democrats." Coors uses PACE, the Political Action Coors Employees, the brewery's political action committee, for this purpose. o $10,000 to the Institute on Religion and Public Life - This right wing think tank, led by Rev. Father James Neuhaus has published anti-gay articles in its monthly magazine, First Things, including The Homosexual Movement: a Response by the Ramsey Colloquium, a virulently homophobic statement signed by 21 Christian and Jewish clergy and academics; o $10,000 to the Council for National Policy - Membership dues paid for Holly Coors, former wife of Joseph and mother of Peter and Jeffrey, for her position on the board of this right wing group. At least four members of the Coors family belong to the group, as does Linda Tofoya, Executive Director of both Adolph Coors Foundation and Castle Rock Foundation. OUR ENEMY We close with the words of a March 1997 letter from William K. Coors, chairman of ALL Coors enterprises and philanthropies. "It is a sad commentary that the vocal activists on any issue invariably do their cause more harm than good. Broadminded people whom I know have no trouble with the concept of homosexuality, but they get totally turned off by the crass exhibitionism of the gay parades that the news media so delight in bringing to the public . . . . The Foundation does contribute to some conservative causes. The assumption of the activist set is that conservatism is by nature and action homophobic, pro- life, anti-Semitic and racially biased. If there are such organizations, they receive no Foundation support. Homosexuality and abortion are two issues on which the Foundation maintains a rigid posture of neutrality. Organizations which foster religious, racial or social bias are off our list as well." WE WON'T SWALLOW COORS' LIES OR HIS BEER! THIS FACT SHEET SPONSORED BY QUEERS BOYCOTTING COORS! OUR PHONE NUMBER IS 415-621-6267. JOIN US!