Conservatives tried to start a boycott of LGBTQ+-friendly businesses. Their efforts backfired.

Several small business owners in Lancaster, Ohio, say they saw an increase in new customers after a local anti-LGBTQ+ group tried to start a boycott campaign against them.

According to local NBC affiliate WCMH, the group Fairfield County Conservatives began circulating a list of local small businesses on social media following two September city council meetings at which members protested drag performances hosted during Lancaster’s family-friendly Pride celebration the same month. Members characterized the events as “pornographic,” an anti-LGBTQ+ tactic that has become all too common in recent years.

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Fairfield County Conservatives member Chuck Burgoon, who is also the executive director of Fairfield Family Forum, told WCMH that the group’s list was meant to inform the community about businesses that have supported The Rainbow Alliance of Fairfield County, a local LGBTQ+ group that hosted the Pride events.

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“None of us have called for anyone to boycott these businesses; we were just trying to figure out who was supporting [the events],” Burgoon said. “Our downtown has suffered greatly, and it has come back now. We don’t want to lose that again, so we haven’t called for anybody to boycott anyone.”

But the owners of businesses on the list aren’t buying it. Brandon Love, owner of gift shop Bewilderment argues that the list was always meant to discourage people from patronizing the businesses on it. He claims to have seen posters slandering his shop around town, while Teresa Speakman, whose Mud Gallery was not on the list, says she’s seen Fairfield County Conservatives members taking photos and videos of businesses in downtown Lancaster with pro-LGBTQ+ signage and merchandise.

Love thinks that if Fairfield County Conservatives “are going to launch a boycott, they need to stand by it.”

If the group had intended to launch a boycott, their efforts apparently backfired.

“We’ve probably had at least 200 people who have never been to Lancaster that have come to town to support the boycotted businesses,” Love said. “People from, not just Columbus, but out of state have been visiting us on the daily now, and so it’s definitely something I didn’t expect.”

Speakman, an LGBTQ+ ally who displays a Pride flag at her gallery, said she’s also seen increased support. “I’ve had people come in here and say, ‘Oh, thank you for your flag, your rainbow flag, thank you for being here. Thank you for being a safe space,’” she told WCMH. “I’m always interested in building community, and I’m an ally of anyone that needs a safe space.”

Love has even responded to Fairfield County Conservatives’ list with his own, comprised of many of the same businesses on the anti-LGBTQ+ groups as well as others that are either LGBTQ+-owned or supportive.

“Brandon took their boycott list and made another list public that said, ‘Hey, these are actually businesses that you do want to support,” Speakman explained. “So, it was kind of turned around to being shared and shared and shared, and has brought me a lot more people that have found me.”

“I’ve been boycotted before as a queer-owned business, I think Ohio’s just kind of sick of their rhetoric and tired of being a hateful state,” said Love. “It’s just not true, this is our home, too. We’re queer people, we’re here, we have communities, we have businesses.”

At the same time, Burgoon and other members of Fairfield County Conservatives continue to push for the Lancaster city council to adopt a measure banning “adult cabaret performances.” According to WCMH, the measure would be similar to House Bill 245, a Republican-backed bill introduced in July 2023 that opponents say would amount to a state-wide ban on drag performances in public spaces.

During testimony before the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee in June, Democrats questioned why the bill would be necessary when local laws address lewd behavior.

But for members of Fairfield County Conservatives, those existing laws don’t go far enough. At a September 23 city council meeting, members of the group shared a screenshot from a video taken during a September 14 Lancaster Pride event showing a drag performer with their legs splayed open. Lancaster city law director Stephanie Hall argued that while she considered the image “tasteless,” the performer did not break any laws.

“The video from that night shows the performer in question was in that position for a split second while performing a dance routine. Dance, like speech, is an expression that is protected,” Hall said, according to WCMH.

Fairfield County Conservatives member Robert Knisley said this was why the group is “pursuing a legislative solution.”

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