Chick-fil-a: Anti-LGBT?

Chick-fil-a is a well-known Georgia based fast food restaurant with juicy chicken sandwiches, chicken strips and for its executives’ lovely strain of Christianity.  Chick-Fil-A has supported anti-LGBT charities through donation, despite saying that they did and do not.

During the fall of 2012, Chick-fil-A announced that they would stop donating to discriminatory anti-LGBT organizations.  This happened a little bit after the company announced “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage,” following an uproar over CEO Dan Cathy’s comments about same-sex marriage and how he is opposed to it.  

In 2017, Chick-fil-a donated more than $1.8 million to groups with a history of anti-LGBT discrimination.  That year, their charitable little heart gave $1,653,416 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, this is a religious organization that tells its employees to refrain from “Homosexual acts”.  They also donated $150,000 to the Salvation Army, which has been accused of anti-LGBT discrimination and advocacy for years, whose media relations director once claimed that gay people “deserve death”.  And yet, another sweet Christian residential home that teaches young boys that same-sex marriage is a “Rage against Jesus Christ and His values” got $6,000 from Chick-fil-a’s donations.

After the news was starting to spread, the San Antonio City Council voted recently to block Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant at San Antonio International Airport, citing what they called the company’s “legacy of anti-LGBT behavior”, showing support for the LGBT community also stating, “Everyone should feel welcome when they walk through our airport.”  Two weeks later, New York Democratic assemblyman, Sean Ryan said that the Buffalo airport food vendor would stop Chick-fil-A from operating in their food courts, finally saying “the views of Chick-fil-A do not represent our state or the Western New York community”.

A queer woman, Samantha Allen, made a statement in 2015 saying, “I am an agnostic queer woman who, of course, takes issue with Chick-fil-A’s anti-gay past but the company has moved on and we should, too.” Though she may not care about the anti-LGBT charities they have made, a lot of LGBT folks have stopped supporting the business, as many did with Victoria’s Secret’s little mishap with transgender women.

Chick-fil-A is a very popular fast food chain in America and supporting things that completely go against the LGBT community may just be a really bad thing for their business.  

How do you feel about this little unfortunate mess that Chick-fil-A has got itself into? Should they support other causes or should they continue donating to anti-LGBT organizations?