Mark Fitzpatrick is the owner of the Old State Saloon, a bar in Idaho that announced that it would be celebrating June as “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” as a promo to bring in new patrons, an idea that sparked a huge fight on Facebook about whether it was funny and clever or spiteful and anti-LGBTQ. Fitzpatrick said the post was inspired by his Christian faith.
As background, in the post, the bar, Old State Saloon, announced that this June will be the inaugural “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” for the bar and its patrons, saying, “June will be OSS’s inaugural Heterosexual Awesomeness Month! Come join us all month to celebrate heterosexuals, for without them, none of us would be here!”
Continuing, it announced that it would celebrate the month with a free draft beer for heterosexual males, saying, “Each Monday will be Hetero Male Monday and any heterosexual male dressed like a heterosexual male will receive a free draft beer. Each Wednesday is Heterosexual couples day and each heterosexual couple will receive 15% off their bill. More events to be announced in the coming weeks. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook to stay informed.”
That post received four and a half thousand likes and over three and a half thousand comments, with varying degrees of fury from the detractors in the comments. That then led the Old State Saloon to post about the foul language in its comments section, saying, “It seems as though people who are against Heterosexual Awesomeness Month have a hard time commenting without using horrific words, expletives, using the name of the Lord in vain, etc. Make an intelligent comment and stay. Cuss and you are banned. Thanks. We’ve banned about 25 already.”
Speaking to Fox News Digital about the post and its aftermath, Fitzpatrick spoke about his Christian faith, saying, “I was thinking of a way that we could celebrate the other side of sexuality, heterosexuality, the way God designed it. And that’s kind of where I’m at with people that support us and are like-minded. So we decided to do Heterosexual Awesomeness Month and then launched it and boy, oh boy, did it take off.”
Continuing, he explained that, despite the blowback his bar got on social media, they’ve also gotten a bunch of new patrons out of it. He said, “We’ve had a whole bunch of people come in, in person into our saloon. We’ve had people driving way out of their way. We had a couple come in, they drove 400 miles out of their way on their trip across the country yesterday…and other people have said they’re going to fly in from out of state. Other people said next time they’re in the state, they’re going to stop by and support us.”
He then added, describing how his Christian faith led him to the idea, “I’m Christian. I follow what the Bible says. I love people. I love all types of people and everything. But when you love people, it doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily get behind everything they decide to do. And especially with the way things have been going the last few years, as far as how extreme it gets in June.”
Further, he told Fox News Digital that he wants to be “involved” in encouraging people to do the right thing, saying, “I’m not just going to sit there and do nothing anymore. I’m going to be involved. I’m going to be out there. I’m going to be rallying people to help do the right thing, celebrate godly things. And I think the rest of the country should do that.”
Fitzpatrick then explained how the positive responses the post got make him think that the country is ready for a change, saying, “I think, from what I’m experiencing with people’s response, is that the country is ready to kind of stand up and say, ‘hey, what about this? And this is a good thing to celebrate, and let’s do that.’” He added, “I want the truth. I know there’s a lot of deception out there in the world. I want the truth to come out on a lot of things, and I just want glorify God in everything that I do.”
Watch him here:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/idaho-bar-owner-behind-heterosexual-awesomeness-month-speaks-out-boy-did-take-off?intcmp=fb_fnc&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR39jsxyzNwK2j-BQsR2TGMGlv4Oue6nH7fTRINMqFIEy57B6Jk7hg6iWn4_aem_Aa50ewbly6OKNsh72-0WmY4VyQgntWW93qWCyVCd9ix_tc-f_1ym5t6hu0vwq1Fcy94yOMthN_-a8lpMWxw3Tjta
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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