Screaming Tom

[QueerAtlanta] An Open Letter to Donna Narducci and the Atlanta LGBT Community

The Ongoing Battle Over Coors
By Tom Dempsey

For many years, I have been preaching the sins of Coors. It is not the sin of drinking (I do) but the wolf in sheep's clothing trying to infiltrate the gay and lesbian community. I truly believe the Coors family is anti-gay and would love to see us all die (except for that one gay son) - and Coors Brewing Company finances this hate.

Atlanta Pride has seen fit to have Coors Brewing Company as a sponsor for several years now and it puzzles me to this day. I have always try to be a better person in this feud presenting the information to the people of Atlanta and letting them form their own opinion. This fight has turned nasty over the years with Donna Narducci getting me fired from my job at BellSouth/Accenture. What purpose this served I still do not know, but it must have made Donna feel superior.

What interests me most is the fact Donna Narducci will not discuss the Coors sponsorship with people. Several have told me they have tried to ask Donna about Coors and her response is "I don't want to talk about it." And who in Atlanta would question Donna about this issue. HRC and Georgia Equality has it's mega-complex every year at Pride so they are mum. Any other group who would stand up to Donna would face being exiled to Siberia in the Pride Market - or worse, not getting their tickets to the VIP reception.

The sad fact is most people don't know or don't care about the issue. Most people lead very busy lives and Coors is a low priority. The few really true activists in Atlanta set their sights on other issues. One major leader in the LGBT comminute had the nerve to say to me I play a role in helping Pride leverage the controversy into more money from Coors.

It doesn't surprise me to see other leaders in Atlanta's LGBT passively behind this. Atlanta's leaders are a very close-knit group and not really that big. In fact, one of our leading lesbian activist is on the Coors payroll.

The Coors Boycott should be familiar to members of QueerAtlanta and many in the Atlanta community so I will not go into the details again.

I was interested to see how successful Coors was in infiltrating the gay communities and pride celebrations around the country and did a search on Google. I could only find three cities with Coors as a sponsor this year - Atlanta, Denver and Reno. Not very impressive. I guess most cities have integrity.

But the outcry by other communities over the years has been stunning:

- The first annual Golden Shower Award for selling out the gay community was presented by the National Coors Boycott Committee to the Claremont (California) Gay Pride Festival organizers on October 10. The Claremont Gay Pride Festival was partially sponsored by the homophobic Coors Brewing Company.

- "A political movement simply can't have corporate sponsorship," says Sarah Schulman, an author and lesbian activist who stopped attending pride parades a few years ago when she saw a Coors beer float pass by.

- After investigating the charges against Coors, Christopher Street West, organizers of the annual Gay Pride celebration in Los Angeles, voted to not accept money from the Coors Brewing Co. and re-endorsed the Coors Boycott.

- Outfest--the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival--refused to take any more Coors money when it became aware that profits from the sale of Coors beer were used to fight against gay and lesbian rights.

- The Stonewall Democratic Club appointed a special Coors Task Force to thoroughly investigate the issues raised by the boycott and the Stonewall membership voted to re-endorse the Coors Boycott.

- The West Hollywood City Council voted unanimously to rescind a 1997 commendation of Coors. Council members said they had been misled and not fully informed previously of Coors' vicious anti-gay agenda.

- In San Francisco, the Coors Boycott was re-endorsed by the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, the Gay Pride Day Parade Committee and the Gay Community Center there turned over a Coors donation to the "Fight the Right" campaign of the Parents and Friends of Gays.

- The LGBT Committee of the National Lawyers Guild is dismayed at the inroads Coors Beer is making into the LGBT Community. The Committee will be attempting to take out ads in a few LGBT papers around the country to educate people on Coors family funding of the right wing.

Why is it these communities have the will to stand up to Coors and their local leaders and Atlanta doesn't?

So I have a few questions for Donna Narducci and Atlanta:

1) Donna, are you on the take? Is Coors paying you under the table to weather this controversy?

2) How is the Atlanta Pride board picked? Do they have a say in issues like Coors? Did your "board" ever do research about Coors before taking their money that other people can review.?

3) Donna, do you really care what the Atlanta LGBT community thinks outside your circle?

4) Does Atlanta really care about Coors and how the rest of the country view Atlanta as backwards and irrelevant?

Your truly,

Tom Dempsey


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Harvey Milk’s life has been an inspiration to not only the queer movement, but to the progressive movement as a whole. Milk knew that the queer struggle for dignity and justice was intimately tied in with the struggle for justice and human rights of all oppressed peoples. He won the admiration of San Francisco’s labor movement by getting Coors beer out of the gay bars during labor’s boycott of Coors. He remained a staunch advocate for all the racial, ethnic and other minorities that made up much of the city.

The New People
June 2002


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posted by Tom Dempsey @ 6/28/2003