Seattle Pride, as an organization and the annual Pride celebrations it produces (Seattle Pride Parade & Seattle Pride in the Park), have grown significantly since the Seattle Pride March/Parade began 46 years ago, and we’ve worked closely with corporate partners to support our growing celebration, which is now one of the largest in the country.
Because Pride and our LGBTQIA+ community are here year-round, we are evaluating all of our corporate partners, with an emphasis on Presenting (higher-level) partners, to ensure they are of the highest caliber and actively support – and do not harm – our community. Through this evaluation process, Seattle Pride has decided to not partner with Amazon for the 2022 Seattle Pride Parade because of their financial donations to politicians who actively propose and support anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation, oppose pro-LGBTQIA+ and other human rights legislation, and for allowing anti-LGBTQIA+ organizations to raise funds from their AmazonSmile program.
As an organization that has supported Seattle Pride and other Pride organizations over the years, we are saddened to learn about Amazon’s support of anti-LGBTQIA+ politicians. In 2020, Amazon donated more than $450,000 to lawmakers who voted against the Equality Act.
In Washington state, they made $11,000 in donations (2020 and 2022) to legislative sponsors of 2022 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills including anti-transgender bills HB 1556 and HB 1960, and critical race theory bills HB 1886 and HB 1807. We simply cannot partner with any organization actively harming our community through the support of discriminatory laws and politics.
As Seattle Pride continues to grow, it is our duty to partner with corporate organizations which actively support the LGBTQIA+ community, and whose values align with our own. Unfortunately, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) employer grading system is not comprehensive enough for Pride organizations to rely on when vetting and selecting partners. We must make a more concerted effort to determine an alignment of values and actions. For example, Amazon has a perfect HRC score despite the aforementioned support of anti-LGBTQIA+ politicians and organizations, as well as publicly reported workers’ rights issues including instances of employee discrimination and bullying. This is why Seattle Pride is requiring all corporate partners to participate in a diversity, equity, and inclusion survey and evaluation process.
Seattle Pride is requesting Amazon – and all other corporate partners – take their business actions into account when sponsoring Pride events in Seattle and around the world. The LGBTQIA+ community is forced to fight for equality, and basic human dignity, year-round; not just in June. Seattle Pride is asking Amazon to request the return of political donations from anti-LGBTQIA+ politicians, and actively remove and deny requests by anti-LGBTQIA+ organizations for the AmazonSmile program prior to being considered for future partnership opportunities.
Seattle Pride is also asking the LGBTQIA+ and allied communities to stand together and act as advocates in their workplaces for business practices not actively harming the LGBTQIA+ community.
By standing up for our values, we are losing sponsorship funds used to produce our growing events, which we hope to offset with donations from our community and trusted allies, so we can continue to produce one of the largest Pride Parades in the U.S. while still holding our values above all else. Pride cannot be bought by corporate partners, it must be earned.