November 16, 1977: the Coors controversy. (From the Archives of The Advocate).

One of the most famous boycotts the gay community has ever launched targeted the Adolph Coors Co. 24 years ago. In 1977 gays and lesbians across America began boycotting Coors products to protest Coors family members' support of rightwing groups. But the boycott had vague roots and was complicated by a concurrent Brewery Workers Union Local 366 strike. In the November 16, 1977, issue of The Advocate, the staff investigated the accusations upon which the protest was based.

The intensive report included interviews with William and Joseph Coors--who said that the Advocate writers were the first gay spokespeople ever to discuss gay rights issues with them--as well as a spokesman for the brewery workers union and two lesbian Coors employees. The report found that while the source of the labor dispute was still unclear and the held rumor that Coors had Anita Bryant's antigay activism in Dade County, Fla., was false, the boycott had a powerful impact on the company.

"This controversy is very important to gay people all over world because it is the gay economic power has had any tangible effect," the Advocate writers noted. "We neither abuse that power nor fail to use it in appropriate causes."