FEATURE Sports Complex A Word from Our Sponsors: Boycotts Can Go Both Ways Jim Provenzano | September 26, 2005 One of the photos from a 2002 Gay Games VI party, which the AFA appropriated from photographer/athlete Chris Geary's website and deemed 'very offensive.' - Photo: Chris Geary This past May, the American Family Association, a right-wing religious group, announced a boycott against Kraft Foods, Inc., for supporting Gay Games VII as a corporate sponsor. The AFA's boycott of Kraft, like their other actions, may turn out to be a victory for the LGBT community and its corporate supporters. However, choices made in corporate sponsorship sometimes fail to consider the larger concerns raised by a sponsor's policies and its politics. Marc Firestone, executive vice president, corporate counsel, and corporate secretary, of Kraft, released a company-wide letter stating, "While Kraft certainly doesn't go looking for controversy, we have long been dedicated to support the concept and the reality of diversity. It's the right thing to do and it's good for our business and our work environment." Firestone's letter proved that the company intends to stick to its policy of supporting Gay Games VII. In addition, it shows an evolution within the company, which has nine of what it calls "diversity councils." Firestone serves on the Rainbow Council, which, he stated, "strives to provide a forum for support and networking among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, and raise awareness within Kraft and promote involvement in the community." Chicago Games, Inc. (CGI), the organization formed to host the Games, has a number of other corporate sponsors. But Kraft's support, given the company's association with middle American tastes, must have struck the AFA as particularly egregious. But with the rather innocuous party photos the AFA appropriated from the website of photographer/athlete Chris Geary, some wonder about the sincerity of this boycott. Kevin Boyer, co-vice president of the Chicago Games, says, "The AFA does this all the time as a strategy to raise funds." However, some gay antismoking activists are not pleased with the Kraft sponsorship. Hal Naphtali, a former organizer of the annual Angel Island Sports Day in San Francisco, was also a founding member of Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (CLASH). Since Kraft is a subsidiary of Altria, formerly known as Philip Morris, Naphtali says that the sponsorship is "tobacco money." "Tobacco kills more queer men each year than AIDS and far more queer women than breast cancer," says Naphtali, who was among the activists who in 2001 convinced the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to eliminate tobacco-company-sponsored smoking rooms at the GLAAD Media Awards benefits. Other corporate sports-related sponsors have their own controversies. Many bar owners and gay organizations have boycotted Coors Brewing Company for decades over its once-discriminatory hiring practices. The fact that Coors has reversed its policies is irrelevant to activists who point out that donations made by the Coors Foundation to antigay groups far surpass those made to gay and AIDS organizations. Reciting those figures wouldn't matter to Colorado LGBT sports teams and organizations, who have enjoyed years of sponsorship from Coors. One such group, the Colorado Gay Ice Hockey Association, recently announced a four-year sponsorship by Coors for their annual tournament, the Coors Cup Hockey Tournament. North America's only gay charity hockey championship, the Coors Cup alternates between venues near Denver and Los Angeles. This year's Coors Cup II was held in El Segundo, Calif., Sept. 2-5. Oregon's only Fortune 500 company, Nike Inc., took a stand for LGBT rights in June when it endorsed a state Senate plan to create civil unions for same-sex couples. "Civil unions promote inclusion by providing all our employees the opportunity to enter into lasting permanent relationships without regard to sexual orientation," wrote Wes Coleman, Nike's vice president of Global Human Relations, in a letter to Oregon legislators. The letter from Nike also supports a separate bill, which bans many forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation. But human rights groups have assailed Nike's overseas labor practices in recent years. Since 2001, workers at subcontracting factories in Vietnam and China were physically abused and given wages as low as $1.60 a day, according to the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities. Additionally, a 1997 Vietnam Labor Watch report stated, "Verbal abuse and sexual harassment are frequent, and corporal punishment is often used. One day during our two week visit, 56 women workers at a Nike factory were forced to run around the factory's premises in the hot sun because they weren't wearing regulation shoes." Nike representatives have since stated that conditions have improved, but the company has prevented any further outside investigations. While receiving financial support for LGBT causes and events, sponsorship recipients seem willing to ignore other problems with these corporations. For organizers of LGBT sports events, part of their outreach goal is to help the sponsors evolve as well. Such sponsorships also gain a higher level of publicity. Many of the conservatives claiming to be outraged over Kraft's sponsorship of the Games had no prior knowledge of the athletic event's extensive history. As with the first Games, which gained international publicity when the United States Olympic Committee prevented their use of the word "Olympic," what was initially considered bad news became free publicity. Jim Provenzano is the author of the novels PINS and Monkey Suits. Read more sports articles at www.sportscomplex.org Related stories Revising the Playbook: LGBT Athletic Groups Educate and Litigate [12/09/2005] SA Gay Games bid 2010: An update [22/08/2005] For more info on Gay Sport in South Africa contact Gay Sport SA