After a 15-month prohibition on Bud Light following the company’s brief promotion with transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, right-wing me
Vesper Henry at MMFA:
After a 15-month prohibition on Bud Light following the company’s brief promotion with transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, right-wing media are thirsting for alternatives. Highlighting their animosity toward LGBTQ Pride Month, reactionary pundits are now uplifting The Old State Saloon, a conservative Idaho bar. It is celebrating what it has deemed “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” this June, one of several right-wing attempts to subvert Pride Month. The event features merchandise including a “Beers for Breeders” T-shirt, as well as discounts for heterosexual couples and “any heterosexual male dressed like a heterosexual male.”
Fox News published two articles on the bar, one of which pushed for more businesses to hold similar events. Fox emphasized owner Mark Fitzpatrick’s identity as a Christian conservative and framed the event as “counter-programming” to Pride Month. The network also uplifted Fitzpatrick’s claims that local coverage amounted to a “hit piece” against him. In a subsequent interview, the owner called Pride Month events “extreme” and said they’d decided to hold the event, in part, because, “I know there's a lot of deception out there in the world. I want the truth to come out on a lot of things, and I just want [to] glorify God in everything that I do.” [Fox News, 6/3/24, 6/7/24]
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The bar regularly hosts the right-wing social group BRAVERITAS to discuss right-wing conspiracy theories and movements, including Christian nationalism and “the Nefarious Vaccine Agenda.” The Old State Saloon described the group as one that focuses on “revealing truth and exposing deception” and facilitating “dialogue about evidences of alternative truth to the mainstream narrative.” [Facebook, archived 6/18/24, 2/16/24, 5/9/24, 3/11/24] Â
The bar has hosted several “offensive political” and conspiracy theory trivia events where winners received an AR-15 or a Scorpion 3 pistol jokingly referred to as a “fully semi automatic extreme assault rifle.” These events were called “Extremely Offensive Political Trivia” or “Conspiracy Theory Trivia.” [Facebook, 5/10/23, 8/28/23, 11/13/23, 2/25/24]
Right-wing media applaud The Old State Saloon’s deranged and homophobic celebration of “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month”. The bar has hosted numerous right-wing and conspiracy-tinged events in recent years.
