The latest to be threatened with a boycott related to LGBTQ+ issues is Garth Brooks. The country singer is opening the Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk in Nashville's South Broadway district this summer, and in an interview with Billboard last week, he said, "If you’re an a-hole, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway." As for his bar, he said, "I want it to be a place you feel safe in, I want it to be a place where you feel like there are manners and people like one another. And yes, we’re going to serve every brand of beer. We just are. It’s not our decision to make. Our thing is this, if you [are let] into this house, love one another." Other stars who own Nashville bars, including John Rich and Kid Rock, have pulled Bud Light from the menu due to its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, and Rich was quick to suggest people might not order Bud Light from Brooks' bar.
As USA Today reports, others went further than that, calling for a boycott of Brooks' bar and music. But this is nothing new for Brooks, who has been an LGBTQ+ ally since his 1992 song "We Shall Be Free," which called for an end to homophobia and racism. On Brooks' weekly streaming show Monday, he responded to the controversy his beer comments had stirred up, Billboard reports. "Everybody’s got their opinions," he said. "But inclusiveness is always going to be me. I think diversity is the answer to the problems that are here and the problems that are coming. So I love diversity. All-inclusive, so all are welcome. I understand that that might not be other people’s opinions, but that’s OK, man. They have their opinions, they have their beliefs; I have mine." He said anyone who comes into his bar should "come in with love. Come in with tolerance, patience. Come in with an open mind." (Interestingly, Brooks said he wants his bar to be "the Chick-fil-A of honky-tonks.")
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