Texas Right to Life Blasts Local Brewery for Renting Space to Pro-Choice Group
By Laila Khalili
Over the last week, comments have been flooding the Facebook page of one of Houston’s beloved breweries, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, because a ‘Men for Choice’ event will be held there later this spring. Texas Right to Life, an organization that wants doctors to tell women that abortions can be reversed, published a blog post encouraging people to harass the brewery for renting their space:
Saint Arnold’s has respectfully replied to many of the angry comments, explaining that this event is simply a neutral business transaction, not a political statement by the brewery.
“To be clear, the is a rental situation only. We are not picking sides on this issue but feel like this group has every right to rent the brewery just as a pro-life group or a church or a law firm or a private birthday party would,” said Lennie Ambrose, the Marketing and Events Director for Saint Arnold.
“We have hundreds of events here every year and have never wanted to try to regulate which ones can pay full price to rent our facility. Saint Arnold is about community and we understand that there are vastly different viewpoints within our fan and customer base so we try to be as inclusive as possible to all of them. We in fact do have many Christian and religious groups rent the brewery and gather in fellowship over a great beer.”
The level of vitriol directed at Saint Arnold’s for simply opening it’s doors to the public is unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected.
“We have had pro-choice groups rent the brewery before and have had a few emails and calls here and there, but nothing on this level,” Mr. Ambrose added.
“The online harassment we’ve seen this week encouraged by Texas Right to Life is nothing new from the anti-choice movement,” said Heather Busby, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. “The anti-choice movement has always relied on bully tactics, and those tactics have only escalated and intensified as access to abortion clinics has been drastically reduced in Texas. These tactics go beyond online harassment—anti-choice activists are trained to stalk abortion clinic staff and patients in an attempt to harass patients out of their decision to have an abortion and to scare staff into quitting their jobs.”
As a result of the harassment, supporters of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas and Saint Arnold have started chiming in, burying the negative comments:
If you’d like to show your support for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, get your ticket to the Houston Men for Choice event. Don’t forget to drink lots of Saint Arnold and continue supporting our local breweries for treating everyone fairly and equally.
