Energize Equality: Red Bull for Marriage Equality

Red Bull is known for a few things: launching the energy drinks craze, being the name brand (a la Kleenex) in the industry, and underwriting alterna-sports events like motorcross and the X Games. It's a privately-held company and whatever charitable organizations, if any, owner Dietrich Mateschitz spends his money on, the company has not previously waded into any political territory.

That quietly changed the other day on Facebook, in the wake of the Prop. 8 and DOMA decisions from the Supreme Court, when the company posted an image made of Red Edition (cranberry flavored) Red Bull cans, a version of the HRC's equality symbol, under a subject headline: Energize Equality.

Many of the page's nearly 39 million fans chimed in with close to 700 comments. While there's no way to know how much they've been edited by Red Bull, comments were largely positive, but there were some stating they'd no longer be purchasing Red Bull, opting for Monster or Rockstar instead (see below).

Incidentally, Monster is owned by Coca-Cola, which even the bigots at the Americans For Truth on Homosexuality website call a "100-Percent Pro-Homosexual Corporations," and in 2009 Rockstar agreed to expand it's LGBT company policies and donate $100,000 to LGBT charities.

If haters are trying to find a suitably antigay energy drink to match their 19^th century values, they're going to be hard-pressed to find anything in the grocery aisles. If they need a little extra fuel, Exxon is still antigay. How's a nice high-octane over ice sound?