Old State Saloon owner Mark Fitzpatrick (center) with a couple who drove from Las Vegas to support his Hetreo Awesomeness Month promotion – Photo: Facebook
An Idaho bar is rabidly trolling the LGBTQ community by celebrating “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” throughout the month of June, during which it will offer specials to patrons who identify as heterosexual.
The Old State Saloon, in the city of Eagle, announced in a May 29 Facebook post it would offer the promotion throughout June, which the LGBTQ community recognizes as Pride Month.
“June will be OSS’s inaugural Heterosexual Awesomeness Month!” the post reads. “Come join us all month to celebrate heterosexuals, for without them, none of us would be here!”
Old State’s offers include a Monday drink special in which every man dressed like a “heterosexual male” — whatever that means — will get a free pint of beer.
A Wednesday deal gives heterosexual couples 15% off their total.
And on Thursdays, heterosexual women get happy hour pricing all day, which seems like your basic, garden-variety “Ladies’ Night.”
Oh, and the bar is selling branded merchandise, including a T-shirt with the phrase “Beers for Breeders.”
The post received backlash from the LGBTQ community and its allies, who flooded Old State Saloon’s Facebook page with negative comments, some laced with profanity, to which Old State clutched its holier-than-thou pearls.
“It seems as though people who are against Heterosexual Awesomeness Month have a hard time commenting without using horrific words, expletives, using the name of the Lord in vain, etc.,” the bar posted on Facebook.
“Make an intelligent comment and stay. Cuss and you are banned.”
Mark Fitzpatrick, the bar’s owner, told Boise NBC affiliate KTVB he has received messages of support from people across the nation from people fed up with the promotion of June as Pride Month or who believe homosexuality is sinful.
As for why he started the promotion, Fitzpatrick said, “June was approaching, and all this stuff was coming,” referring to Pride Month promotions online, in the media, and in stores.
“I love people, but as far as being a biblical Christian, to celebrate it, I can’t do that,” he said. “And the last several years, it’s just been getting so extreme. So we created ‘Heterosexual Awesomeness Month.'”
He then told KTVB, “The imagery that you see a month with parades and getting to the point of nakedness and things with people walking down the street, I can’t get behind that.”
When asked where exactly people are getting naked in Pride parades, Fitzpatrick stated he doesn’t know if it’s happening locally because he hasn’t visited Boise during its annual Pride festival.
Fitzpatrick claims to “love” LGBTQ people but doesn’t agree with their sexual activities.
“I’m always going to side with what God says,” he told KTVB. “If the Bible says it’s a sin to act out in homosexuality, then I’m going to agree with what the Bible says. I didn’t make the rules. God made the rules.”
On its website, Old State posted a rambling, somewhat incoherent notice bemoaning that “[s]ince we announced Hetero Awesomeness Month we’ve had some significant backlash: theft of our property, vendors refusing to fulfill our orders for ingredients, wedding catering cancelation, libel, slander – even the owner being falsely accused of being a sex offender!
“But, to the credit of the community that is rational and reasonable, we’ve also received so much support from like-minded people who want to celebrate Heterosexual Awesomeness Month with us, and get the concept of it as being about freedom and being true to our personal values.”
In a move that sounds like it came straight (ahem) out of a Trump playbook, the bar then asks for donations through a conservative crowdfunding website.
So far, $15,621 has been raised, mostly from anonymous sources.
“Thank you for bravely standing up for morality and God’s Word,” wrote ‘Anonymouse Giver.’ “I donate anonymously always, as God has advised us to do, not because I am fearful…. The only Pride Flag I have has red and white stripes and blue in the upper corner.”
The money — will be used to create “a physical location specifically for traditional and faith-based events, preserving Idaho’s amazing and conservative culture. Our owner Mark Fitzpatrick said ‘If the world wants to support “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” by crowdfunding an even larger Hetero HQ, let’s do it!”
Fitzpatrick told KTVB that “there are people commenting online this is a publicity stunt. This is definitely marketing for sure, but it’s also celebrating heterosexuality and you can do both of those things at once.”
Imagine that.
He also told KTVB that those who disapproved of his “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” promotion could have ignored it and not responded with hateful comments, which were part of what made the original post go viral.
Old State Saloon seems content to post inflammatory content designed to troll the LGBTQ community and its supporters.
On Thursday, Old State Saloon’s Facebook page re-shared a Facebook post from the Boise-based “Disciples Coffee,” depicting a child vomiting rainbow colors. The caption reads “Protect the children,” a phrase that invokes the hateful, decades-old stereotype about LGBTQ people posing a threat to children by seeking to “convert” them into homosexuality and gender nonconformity.
Old State Saloon then wrote, in its own response to the image, “This wouldn’t be posted if things hadn’t gone way too far!”
It’s not the first time Fitzpatrick has sponsored provocative events with the apparent intent of trolling liberals and rebranding the bar as a sanctuary for political and social conservatives.
Previously, Old State Saloon has hosted “Truth Seeker” night, “Conspiracy Theory Trivia” (with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle as a prize!), “Open Carry Coffee” mornings for gun owners, events for “Flat Earthers” and people critical of vaccines, and a “Christian Singles Mingle” mixer, which feels relatively sane by comparison.
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