Revival Brewing Company Shuts Down Customers in Solidarity with Anonymous Libel
Local brewery Revival Brewing Company has shut down a planned event scheduled for tonight by the Rhode Island chapter of the America’s Future Foundation (AFF) based on a libelous Instagram post asserting that AFF has a hidden white supremacist agenda. Here’s the Instagram post, which is obviously from somebody who opposes AFF:
In repeated comments under the post announcing the cancellation of the event, the Revival Brewing Company Facebook account stated that “regardless of it being true or not, we needed to stop it.” The company’s account also posted a picture of a card insisting that it stands with “all races, all religions, all countries of origin, all sexual orientations” and “all genders,” while seeming to make no distinctions between an anonymous allegation and fact when it comes to “white supremacy.”
Fortunately for Revival Brewing, conservatives tend to think private companies should have a right to decide who can use their facilities and shouldn’t be forced to “bake the cake,” as progressives insist when Christian bakers opt not to celebrate same-sex wedding ceremonies. Whether people who value free speech should continue to patronize Revival Brewing Company is another matter. At best, the company’s owners aren’t as principled as they think they are. At worst, they’re happy to find excuses to exclude people who are different from them.
ADDENDUM (5:13 p.m., 2/28/18):
When asked why people are calling AFF racist, Revival owner Sean Larkin tells GoLocalProv: “I have [no] idea, I’m more worried about people damaging my business and the lively hood of my employees implicating that we support an organization that is loosely tied to this thought.” Note that the only “loose tie” between this group and racism is anonymous libel on social media.