A Texas brewery hit with threats and harassment for refusing to host a rally that includes acquitted shooter Kyle Rittenhouse is staunchly defending its determination.
Southern Star Brewing Co. of Conroe introduced Friday it canceled an upcoming “Rally Against Censorship” with Rittenhouse that had been booked on the brewery.
“It’s been kind of a shitstorm,” brewery CEO Dave Fougeron told The Texas Tribune in an interview Saturday. “But now I’m more certain than ever that I made the right decision.”
The brewery, which had been listed because the occasion venue, stated in a press release on Twitter that it’s an “apolitical organization, but we feel that this event doesn’t reflect our own values, and we could not in good faith continue to rent out space for the event.” It added: “We don’t do rallies, we make beer for people who like beer.”
In a massively controversial case, Rittenhouse was acquitted in 2021 within the fatal shootings of two unarmed protesters at a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse, who was 17 on the time, was armed with an AR-15-style rifle. He additionally wounded a 3rd protester. He argued that he was defending himself.
Rittenhouse, who was reportedly added to the event lineup Wednesday, tweeted after the cancellation Friday that he was being censored and the brewery had caved to the “woke crowd.”
Fougeron reemphasized to the Tribune that the brewery is apolitical and goals to be a welcoming place for everybody.
“Our place is super inclusive,” he informed the outlet. “We are super pro-veteran, super pro-law enforcement. We’re trying to be good people in the community. We’re friends with our firefighters, with our police department. … We have a lot of gay patrons who come in because it’s a place of inclusivity. It’s crazy that we’re getting threats from people.”
The Rittenhouse rally was additionally slated to incorporate a pacesetter of TEXIT, a bunch that advocates for Texas to secede from the U.S., the Tribune reported.
Defiance Press, a right-wing native writer, was organizing the occasion, in accordance with the newspaper. The occasion will “definitely” be rescheduled elsewhere, an organizer informed the Tribune.
Related…
story by Source link