Tag Archives: pridemonth

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Daily Broadside | Either Bud Light Hasn’t Learned a Thing or They Just Don’t Care

In my commentary yesterday about all the “Pride” events I didn’t mention Bud Light, but they were part of the story. Before I get to that, here’s the latest on their cratering sales.

Data from Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ show that sales for Bud Light are down 28.5 percent year-over-year for the week ending June 17, according to the New York Post. That’s a decline of about 2 percentage points from the week ending June 10, when sales dropped 26.8 percent, Bump Williams’s data show.

Anheuser-Busch’s other brands, including Budweiser and Michelob Ultra, have also suffered year-over-year losses. Budweiser’s sales are down 12.3 percent, Busch Light is down 8.1 percent, and Michelob Ultra is down 4 percent, according to Bump Williams and Nielsen IQ.

At the same time, competitors like Yuengling Lager went up 25.1 percent, the data show. Coors Light saw a 21.8 percent increase, and Miller Lite went up 16 percent.

And for the month of May, Constellation Brands-owned Modelo Especial was the number one-selling brand in the United States, outpacing Bud Light, which fell to number two, industry data show.

Bump Williams, chief of the eponymous consulting company, told the New York Post on June 21, “This was a tough week for Bud Light and other beer brands” that are owned by Anheuser-Busch, including Budweiser. Sales of Budweiser were down by 10 percent, Natural Light was down by 2.3 percent, and Michelob Ultra was down by 2.4 percent.

Any hope that the consumer backlash would ease up after a spike of disgust has rapidly vanished. 24 percent of Bud Light’s buyers “no longer purchase the brand.”

“We believe recent underperformance implies a permanent reduction in ABI’s U.S. business,” Deutsche Bank analyst Mitch Collett wrote for Barron’s. “Our proprietary survey data suggests these headwinds are likely to fade even if we do not expect the U.S. business ever to fully recover from its current challenges.”

Collett also upgraded shares of AB InBev to “buy” from “hold,” increasing the price target to $65.92 from $64.83, according to the report. Data gathered by Deutsche Bank suggest that 24 percent of Bud Light’s consumers no longer purchase the brand. Another 18 percent are buying less, he said.

[…]

Another analyst said Bud Light could see tough times ahead. Evercore’s Robert Ottenstein said Bud Light will “permanently lose” between 15 and 20 percent of its volume. After that, “declines will resume at about the average rate of the prior 10 years,” he said.

Buy low, sell high.

Has the “fratty” and “out of touch humor” been sufficiently updated yet, Bud?

Apparently.

However, some social media users this week noticed Bud Light is an official sponsor of the Pride Toronto Parade, which promotes the LGBT lifestyle, and will “feature them on our can design.”

“Bud Light Canada has been a proud partner of Pride Toronto for the last 10 years. This year, we’re commemorating this milestone with Pride Toronto by featuring them on our can design, as well as continuing as the official beer sponsor of the festival,” Bud Light’s Canadian website says. “As a brand, Bud Light Canada is excited to once again celebrate and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community through Pride Toronto’s annual pride celebration and parade.”

Is this double down on stupid? Bud Light can’t NOT know that their consumer base has fled and most likely won’t be replaced, precisely because they associated themselves with a trans-influencer, part of the ever-expanding alphabet mafia. They have refused to apologize or even fire anyone involved in that disastrous marketing decision. (Bud Light Marketing Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid and Group Vice President of Marketing Daniel Blake are still on “leave” and Anheuser-Busch denies reports that they were fired.)

Here’s what was on Bud Light’s stage at the Toronto festivities. (Content warning if you click the link.)

They deserve to be not just be boycotted, but abandoned. Leave them to the minority of sexual obsessives’ dollars. That’s who they pander to, so leave them.

They are blind guides.

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Daily Broadside | Smut No Longer Hidden in Brown Paper Wrappers But Presented Live and in Public to Children

I assume that many of you have seen the reports of “Pride” events around the states. All are little more than wicked displays of hedonism. Content warning for links to the following videos.

A nearly naked man in underpants twerks in front of children in Minneapolis.

Fully naked men proudly show their penises to children in Seattle.

An “all ages family-friendly” pride festival in Denver.

Overtly-sexual performances and entertainment with children present at a Pride event in Arlington, TX.

The event above took place “directly next to a big church in Arlington. This, of course, is not a surprise; a frequent strategy of the organizers of these events is to incorporate faith and religion in their blasphemous performances” (emphasis mine).

Here, a street preacher is surrounded, mocked and belittled by members of a “Pride” event who “woof” like dogs and claim they are “born this way.”

Back to the children. It’s clear that these sexually obsessed perverts are determined to force their version of morality on the next generations of children. Listen to this crowd in the annual New York City Drag March chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children!”

We all agree they are grooming our children.

Intentionally.

Methodically.

Without apology.

I look at this and think, “How much more can we tolerate?” Seriously. I mean, how low can we allow it to go? We’re at a severe level of deviancy and licentiousness. This is a Sodom-and-Gomorrah kind of wickedness.

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

God destroyed that city for its sexual deviancy.

Worst of all, I’m aghast not only with the flaunting of public nudity (isn’t that illegal?), but with the fact that parents are exposing their children to this debauchery. This isn’t about “rights” and a hand wave away because parents “know what’s best” for their children. What has happened to their sense of propriety? How is it that they’ve become accessories to the destruction of the youngest and most innocent of minds and bodies?

The Church cannot be party to this. In fact, the Church should be leading the charge against sexual deviancy. Unfortunately, many churches embrace homosexuality and show up to “Pride” parades to show “love and support” for those who practice homosexuality. It’s “loving,” you see, to support such people. We don’t want to come across as hateful and judge-y now, do we?

I imagine a day when thousands upon thousands of Christians and like-minded Americans show up and outnumber participants and audiences at these crass and tasteless spectacles. Be prepared to be arrested, though, for causing a disturbance or for engaging in “hate” speech.

We should not be afraid to exhibit righteous indignation and, frankly, outrage over the clear degeneracy being displayed. God said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

It was as bad as the outcry that reached him. And there were consequences.

Do you suppose the outcry against America is currently “so great and our sin so grievous” before a holy God? Why should we think we’re somehow immune to a similar fate?

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Daily Broadside | This New Toy Wants You to Feel Included

Daily Broadside | Esther 4:14
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

It’s Monday and we’re off into another week which happens to be the last one in May. “Turtle dove” sounds like the best combination of chocolate in the world.

Next month is June, which is the first month of the summer season and the month in which the longest day of the year occurs. It’s also the month now celebrated as Pride Month. Just in time to celebrate, toymaker LEGO has announced a brand new box set called “Everyone is Awesome.” The 346-piece set offers 11 figures with each assigned a color of the rainbow.

CNN quotes creator Matthew Ashton, who says, “I wanted to create a model that symbolizes inclusivity and celebrates everyone, no matter how they identify or who they love.” Mind you, this has nothing to do with building things with plastic bricks; it has everything to do with making people feel like they belong. When you don’t feel like you belong, you feel left out or alienated from others.

People (especially kids) feeling alienated or left out is a common experience. Listen to Ashton describe his experience:

“Growing up as an LGBTQ+ kid – being told what I should play with, how I should walk, how I should talk, what I should wear – the message I always got was that somehow I was ‘wrong’,” he said. “Trying to be someone I wasn’t was exhausting. I wish, as a kid, I had looked at the world and thought: ‘This is going to be OK, there’s a place for me’. I wish I’d seen an inclusive statement that said ‘everyone is awesome’.”

The alienation is real, so the problem he’s trying to resolve is real. But, as Albert Mohler observes, the alienation is misplaced — “the primary alienation is the alienation of the creature from the Creator.” And that can’t be fixed with a model toy that tells you, “you’re awesome.”

(Somewhat inexplicably, the Lego set is targeted at the eighteen-plus crowed. If you believe that it won’t be bought for children at much younger ages, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.)

The other thing to note here is the title of the set: Everyone is Awesome. Returning to Mohler, he says,

What exactly does “awesome” mean? Even if you understand how the word has been devalued in our society, is everyone awesome? Is everyone awesome all the time? Are you going to speak of everyone is equally awesome? Does it have anything to do with sexual identity? And as everything is awesome, everything really is awesome. I don’t think so. It’s a branding message but it’s also a branding message that fits into the model confusion of our time. We don’t actually believe that everyone is awesome as defined by character, as defined by behavior, as defined by any number of things. We do believe that everyone is equally made in the image of God and every single human being bears equal dignity and thus infinite worth. The statement, “Everyone is awesome,” basically sounds like the understanding that everyone must have a trophy.

For those who long to be affirmed as having “worth,” the message “you’re awesome” is very appealing. But relationships and circumstances and cultural norms change. What happens when the people who tell you you’re awesome aren’t around any more? When the job tells you to start looking for other opportunities? When what you ‘identify as’ becomes “the norm”?

Where do you find lasting affirmation?

Who you are is the core issue, and the Bible tells us we are all made in the image of God, but that image has been marred by sin in everyone of us. That’s the issue that we have to address, and we can’t do it by looking to others to provide the affirmation we need. In fact, sometimes rather than affirming someone based on their sexuality, we need to affirm them based on their dignity in the eyes of an all-loving God.

The “Everyone Is Awesome” Lego model is just a continuation of the moral degeneracy that we’re suffering as a nation. It’s one more burr hooked into the lining of our national moral framework. True affirmation comes not from those around us, but from the One who made us.