The corporations financing the Dallas Tavern Guild parade support anti-gay politics, kill innocent civilians, exploit the poor, and deny transgender employment protections. A community-funded, corporate-free Pride would better reflect of our community's shared social values of justice and equality for queers everywhere.

For example, the president of Andrews Distributing — Dallas Pride’s largest sponsor — donates to anti-gay politicians who compare same-gender marriage to incest and pedophilia. 

Heineken excludes gender identity from its employment non-discrimination policy (http://asp.hrc.org/issues/workplace/organization_profile.asp?organization_id=19692&search_id=1&search_type=Quick).

Raytheon and Lockheed Martin — two businesses that have paid to walk in the parade — are war-profiteers whose weapons  have killed thousands of innocent civilians in the Middle East (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED04Ak07.html​, http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=13 and http://www.thenation.com/article/157626/lockheed-martin-shadowing-you).

JPMorgan Chase fleecing of taxpayers and homeowners helped cause the 2008 U.S. financial collapse (http://rt.com/business/morgan-deal-crisis-us-453/).

Pride is the public face of the Dallas queer community and a time to celebrate our work in the ongoing fight for full equality. Pride should not welcome and promote companies that actively abuse human rights and hurt queers. The Dallas Tavern Guild should drop all such corporate sponsors and become a community-centered event that reflects of our community’s civic values of love, inclusion and justice for all queers.