On Pride Month, Corporate America keeps getting it wrong

That followed Target removing the sale of some LGBTQ-related merchandise from stores in May after the retailer faced an intense backlash ― some shoppers in other parts of the country confronted workers and knocked down displays.

That company’s decision in turn did not sit well with 15 attorneys general, including Massachusetts’ Andrea Campbell, who penned a letter to Target CEO Brian Cornell calling on the chain to reverse course to “double down on inclusivity.”

“[W]e fear your choice to pull Pride merchandise demonstrates that intentional violence and intimidation can set back the march for social progress and LGBTQIA+ equality,” the attorneys general wrote.

So far Target isn’t budging or saying anything beyond its original statement in May: “Our focus now is on moving forward with our continuing commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community and standing with them as we celebrate Pride Month and throughout the year.”

But this year’s worst offender has to be Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser, after featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, in a Bud Light promotion. That sparked a customer boycott and a corporate response that failed to defend the LGBTQ+ community.

File under: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The irony is that Corporate America has been a leader in supporting LGBTQ+ employees. Many companies were out front in the push to offer same-sex partner benefits before gay marriage was legalized and to provide transgender health care.

Target and Starbucks aren’t outliers. In 2022, both were designated a “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality” by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which tracks how LGBTQ+ employees are treated in the workplace.

So what’s going on?

Companies are caught in the cultural blowback driven by right-wing politics. Corporate types will do anything ― including jettisoning their values ― to make bad headlines go away and calm investors worried about principled stances eating into profits.

Sure, some businesses can be accused of “pinkwashing” when they conspicuously show support for LGBTQ+ rights — cue the rainbows — during Pride Month. But these days, companies need to truly understand what they’re getting into.

“As an advocate for the LGBTQ community, I’m supposed to say, ‘Everybody’s supposed to be inclusive of LGBTQ people and let the chips fall where they may,’ ” said Grace Moreno, executive director of the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce. “There’s also the business person in me who says, ‘These are not easy times ... it has to be something that you’re doing organically through the organization because then you’ve prepared your organization to make accommodations for whatever might be the fallout.’ ”

Eastern Bank, a local company, has proudly been displaying its support for the LGBTQ+ community for years. It was the first bank in the country to have a trans person on its board. When the bank launched its “Join us for good” campaign in 2017, billboards and TV commercials featured gay couples. The bank got political, too, signing an amicus brief a decade ago against the Defense of Marriage Act to pushing for the successful 2018 “Yes on 3″ campaign that upheld protections for transgender people in Massachusetts.

CEO Bob Rivers acknowledges it’s a little easier to stand up for LGBTQ+ rights in progressive Massachusetts, where most of its branches are located. Still, it’s not lost on him that culture wars are intensifying and organizations are susceptible to pressure.

“We’ve been talking about it in terms of how do we stand up stronger, and how do we make sure that our customers, our employees, and our community know where we stand?” said Rivers.

One way is to be clear-eyed about why the bank leans into LGBTQ+ issues, which Rivers calls a matter of “basic civil and human rights.”

Still, not everyone will agree, so Eastern’s employees, in particular frontline workers in branches, are trained to deal with potential customer pushback. It involves listening, as well as being empathetic and deescalating tense situations.

While customers are entitled to their opinion, Rivers said, the bank is firm on its stance. “Certainly in no way do we imply in those conversations that we are sorry, or that we are going to reconsider,” he added.

The scope and authenticity of corporate sponsorships were among the issues front and center of this year’s Boston’s Pride parade, which returned on June 10 after a three-year hiatus.

To reduce commercialization of the event, corporate sponsors marched later in the procession. Parade organizers also set a new policy of not accepting money from sponsors that support efforts that are anti-LGBTQ+, racist, or anti-abortion. For example, companies backing such legislation in states like Florida and Arizona could not serve as sponsors, but their employee groups could march in the parade.

About a half-dozen sponsors were turned away, said Gary Daffin, cochair of the Boston Pride for the People parade committee and executive director of the Multicultural AIDS Coalition. He declined to name the companies.

“It’s really a form of activism for us,” said Daffin. “It’s opening people’s eyes to the fact that there’s harm being done by companies who are friends in many other ways, but still are supporting things that are not good.”

Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.