Everyone wants to be in a Super Bowl ad, right? This year saw the usual array of celebrities: Texas hero Beyoncé introducing new music after a Verizon ad. Ben Affleck went all in on his Dunkin’ persona, and Aubrey Plaza and Nick Offerman had a (Baja) Blast. Well, Dallas got a moment in the sun, too, and hooooboy has it backfired.
Cedars dive bar Lee Harvey’s was featured in a photo for a brief moment in an ad put together called “He Gets Us.” In it, a man seen smoking in a bar is featured, the wood-paneled walls of Lee Harvey’s behind him.
It was one of three ads the campaign ran during the big game, at an estimated cost at $17.5 million. The ads were put together by the Dallas-based ad firm Lerma, the Dallas Morning News reports, which accounts for how Lee Harvey’s ended up in the 15-second “Who Is My Neighbor?” ad.
It turns out, Lee Harvey’s owner Seth Smith did not know who booked the shoot or what it was for. Smith tells Eater Dallas that occasionally photo and video shoots happen at the bar, and sometimes they ask where it will be used. But this time, he was out of the country and a manager booked it. They did not ask; all they knew was that it was for a local advertising firm — and there was some chatter that it might end up in the Super Bowl.
The bar shared a Facebook post noting its placement in the commercial. Then, a phone call from his manager alerted Smith to negative comments coming in.
The ads immediately drew criticism on social media from both sides of the political aisle, with conservative Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire calling it “awful” and “a wasted opportunity,” while liberals and several LGBTQ activists have encouraged people to pay attention to who was funding the campaign. Activist Matt Bernstein expanded on this point in an Instagram carousel, operating under the assumption that the same people who funded the 2023 commercials are also the primary investors fueling the 2024 campaign. Similar critiques began playing out in the comments section of Lee Harvey’s post.
The issue boils down to who produced the Christian campaign.
Beginning in 2022, USA Today reports that the Servant Foundation, a non-profit that has received funding from the likes of Hobby Lobby founder David Green in 2023, oversaw the campaign. Hobby Lobby previously won a case in the Supreme Court that allowed them to deny coverage of birth control for employees in their health care packages on ideological grounds. Servant Foundation, in turn, donated $65.9 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an organization that participated in efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, between 2018 and 2021, openDemocracy reports. In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the ADF an anti-LGBTQ hate group noting has aided the passage of religious exemption laws that lead to discrimination against gay people, litigation of suits that restricts bathroom use among transgender students and excludes them from sports, and its support of the forced sterilization of transgender people in Europe.
However, the “He Gets Us” campaign has since divorced itself from the Servant Foundation, instead receiving funding from a new non-profit called Come Near for its 2024 Super Bowl ad campaign, the Associated Press reports. On its website, the “He Gets Us” campaign distances itself from the connections with Servant Foundation, writing, “Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves trans people. The LGBTQ+ community, like all people, is invited to explore the story of Jesus and consider his example of unconditional love, grace, and forgiveness of others.”
“He Gets Us does not and has never given to anti-LGBTQ+ groups or ADF,” Greg Miller, the PR agent for the campaign tells Eater Dallas in an email. Miller did not address questions about who donates to the Come Near Foundation, how they are vetted, or what sort of influence donors have on the campaign.
“I was caught off guard by people’s confusion and feel horrible if anyone was hurt,” Smith says. He clarifies that Lee Harvey’s Facebook post was not a promotion of the campaign or anything it stands for.
“We’ve had gay weddings, had a drag show over at [Lee Harvey’s Dive In], and host Chick Happy Hour [a lesbians and straight allies monthly event] when it rotates to our venue,” Smith says. “We welcome everyone, we just need you to behave…Our intent was completely self-serving, to say hey look at Lee Harvey’s. It wasn’t about us promoting them.”
The following day, Lee Harvey’s posted a message to Facebook in an attempt to clarify its participation in the ad. “We were used as a location by an advertising agency unaware of the client. It wasn’t until later that we discovered our business would be part of a Super Bowl ad, still not knowing the client. We do not endorse, align with, or support this campaign or client in any way. One of the many things that sets us apart is our diverse and inclusive crowd, where everyone is always welcome,” it reads, closing with the message that “WE LOVE EVERYBODY.”
“[The campaign] has a life outside of us, but I just worry about our customers and our potential customers,” Smith says. “That’s not the way we’ve operated, for 20 years now. Our business is to be welcoming.”
