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For A-B InBev, Marriage Equality = Beer

BudEqualityPicApril 4, 2013
  
In the last few weeks, support for marriage equality rolled through Facebook and prompted millions of users to change their profile pictures to the red and pink equality symbol from the Human Rights Campaign. Unfortunately, A-B InBev has taken an important social movement and turned it into just another opportunity to make money from its products that cause so much harm, especially for the LGBT community. The Belgian beer conglomerate altered the HRC's logo to highlight two Bud Light beer cans, then posted the doctored image to the Bud Light official Facebook page.

While A-B InBev taking every possible opportunity to promote its brands is neither surprising nor anything new, this particular move seems like even more of a slick grab for attention that degrades the millions of Americans who are fighting for the issue of marriage equality on a real, substantive level. (Even more embarrassing for the conglomerate is the fact that A-B InBev is not even among the list of 278 major employers  who filed a brief publicly opposing DOMA and argued that it is bad for business.)

Obviously there is no limit to A-B InBev's audacity and the lengths it will go to promote its products. While it co-opts the HRC marriage equality logo for Bud Light, alcohol and related harm continues to be a major health concern for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, especially LGBT youth. And A-B InBev still remains a primary sponsor of the UFC, whose president and various "athletes" came under fire last year for homophobic, sexist, violent, and derogatory remarks.

Equality? Human rights? Not so much.