Why Are Corporations Abandoning San Francisco’s “Gay Pride” Festival?
Edwin Benson April 9, 2025 tfp./why-are-corporations-abandoning-san-franciscos-gay-pride-festival
On June 29-30, 2024, debauchery reigned on the streets of San Francisco. That weekend, it was not merely tolerated but rather sponsored by the city. This was the City by the Bay’s great social celebration—the Pride Festival.
The event goes back to 1970 when a few paraders marched down Polk Street to City Hall and then gathered in Golden Gate Park. The first organized and city-sanctioned parade occurred two years later. Over the decades, its popularity ballooned. Other localities emulated it, but this annual celebration is the ne plus ultra of licentiousness.
Withdrawing Support
However, this year something has drastically changed as the 2025 event approaches. Several major corporate sponsors have withdrawn their financial support. These patrons included major names like communications giant Comcast, Anheuser-Busch (brewers of Budweiser) and spirit distributor Diageo (carrier of Guinness beers, Smirnoff vodka and other big brands). They follow Meta—the corporate parent of Facebook—which ended its backing in 2024.
The pullout of these giant woke companies has resulted in a shortfall of $300,000 out of a total of $3.2 million from corporations. More actions might follow. Other companies still have three months to withdraw their support.
Organizers said the withdrawal was “very abnormal.” They are concerned because these donor are long time contributors that suddenly stopped donating. It appears these big firms are following the public in its rejection of the LGBTQ agenda. The event will still go on, but the withdrawal puts a damper on the festivities.
Changing Conditions
These corporate actions mark a significant change. After decades of increasing support, the pendulum may be swinging in the other direction.
Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, which coordinates the annual event, knows it. She told local television station KTVU, “The tone has changed in this country. Businesses already hedge their bets, and I think people who, this isn’t the hard core value of their corporation, maybe they’re rethinking their investment.” She points her finger at President Trump. “I’m very concerned. Obviously, there’s pressure from the federal government.”
At the same time, the 2024 election does indicate changing conditions. However, it is only one symptom of the left’s current distress, not the cause. Other symptoms abound. The widespread rejection of Bud Lite’s marketing strategy involving a “transgender influencer” in the spring of 2023 was one sign. The abandonment of DEI methods by all but the true believers is another. The growing rejection of liberal news outlets is a third. The demographic shift among the two political parties’ supporters has massive significance, although its extent and longevity remain uncertain.
Clearly, public sentiment is shifting in a more conservative and moral direction, and that is a very good thing.
Politics is Not Enough
However, just conservative sentiments are not enough. If this movement away from immorality is to gain traction, it must come from strong religious convictions and actions. Only Christianity is enough.
It would be pleasant to say that America and Western culture are turning away from sin, to argue that they have awakened to the peril and are turning back to the ways of God as Nineveh did in the days of the Prophet Jonah. Certainly, such a reversal would be well within God’s power, but there is little evidence that He is using that overwhelming method today. There is still abundant evidence that society’s downfall is progressing rapidly.
An Ongoing Conflict
However, the present situation does represent a positive movement that shows signs of growing. People are starting to question some basic premises that favored the advance of liberal ideas.
The new developments raise two questions. First, what provoked the ascendancy of some conservative ideas while the leftists wander about, confused and leaderless? Second, is there some action of God’s grace that is calling Americans to consider alternatives to liberalism’s call to favors the unbridled passions?
The easy question comes first.
The Radicals’ Errors
The American people are tired of revolutionary change. The media offense against Christian values reached a point that it sparked a reaction from those who resented having immoral ideas stuffed down their throats.
The radicals took three steps too far. They branded every white person a racist. This inherent racism, they alleged, was an unforgivable crime against humanity. Second, they aided and abetted a rise in actual crime. Preventing theft, brutality, or even murder became an unconscionable offense against the poor. Third, they tried to convince people that boys could be girls and girls could be boys.
Such absurd charges against ordinary Americans are causing people to challenge the woke establishment. Corporate America is seeking cover from offended consumers.
The Source of Healing
At the same time, many people are looking to fill the void of liberalism’s false promises. They are looking for discipline, structure and rituals to give meaning and purpose to their lives.
Christianity had a clear moral code in accordance with human nature. It attracts these searching souls and instills them with certainties and convictions.
Under such conditions, God’s grace can set in motion movements inside the public in the direction of the practice of virtue and the rejection of vice. This can change the atmosphere in society so that even woke companies see that it make business sense to withdraw their support for immoral causes.
Much depends if people remain faithful to such movements. However, these long-time donors’ shift away from supporting “pride” after so much promotion of the LGBTQ cause is a step in the right direction.