Chick-fil-A CEO changes story on political donations

Dan Cathy, CEO of restaurant chain Chick-fil-A, this week denied news reports that the company has stopped funding groups that actively oppose marriage for same-sex couples. The reports say that Cathy negotiated recently with LGBT advocates and provided documents to show Chick-fil-A had exited the political debate. Chicago Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno, who this week released a letter from Chick-fil-A officials promising him it would no longer fund groupswith political agenda, is now asking Cathy to clarify the company’s position.

Everything you need to know about Chick-fil-A

On Wednesday, August 1, Florida's largest gay newspaper, South Florida Gay News, released a comprehensive breakdown of the Chick-fil-A controversy, from past and upcoming protests to local store owners speaking out.

But it doesn’t end there. SFGN also took a look at donations that CFA’s philanthropy arm has made since 2003, in an exclusive overview. Of course, the piece wouldn’t be complete without an overview of celebrity chatter about the issue, both from supporters and opponents.

To top it all off, SFGN created the only all-encompassing and up-to-date interactive timeline of the CFA controversy.

Accompanying SFGN’s coverage is an insightful column from Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen.

LGBT community should defend Chick-fil-A's freedom of speech?

The views of Chick-fil-A's president, Dan Cathy, are "repugnant and backward," according to Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff, but it's wrong for the gay community to urge government sanction because of those views, he says in a recent editorial.

"Endorsing government attacks on a business over its president’s views -- however offensive and wrong -- is reckless and ignores our community’s long, painful history of being victimized by government officials," Knaff writes.

The Gay Vegans: The Gay Vegans and Chick-fil-A

 

 

By Mike

Many of you know that Dan (Hanley) usually writes these blogs. With all of the recent news about Chick-fil-A I wanted to relate a personal story.

Look at some of the companies and groups that Chick-fil-A financially supports.

One of the groups is Exodus International who’s mission statement says “Mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality”.  On their site they say they do not support bullying, reparative therapy, or anything like that.  This is not true.  Though they don’t specifically offer reparative therapy they quickly get people into programs of reparative therapy.  These therapies can range from counseling to more intensive things like exorcisms, electro shock therapy, brain washing, etc.  It really depends on the people who are running a particular chapter of the group. 

So where is my personal connection you may ask?  In my first year of college I got involved with a Christian group on campus.  The other students in the group were amazing.  I really enjoyed being with these people and will forever be grateful for them.  Yet in the process of being involved with this group I got involved with people from Exodus International along with other Ex-Gay groups.  These people led me to believe that being gay was not what God intended for me.  I was very confused coming from a religious background that did not accept homosexuality. I had finally started to accept who I am until these people came along. They quickly got me involved in reparative therapy sessions. My sessions included long hours with groups (that I had to pay for; thousands of dollars wasted) telling me that my being gay was a result of things that happened to me and I had a choice not to be gay. There was laying of hands, exorcisms in the group, and though it never happened to me, some individuals experienced electro shock therapy. The sessions were very much in a bullying style intended to brainwash us into believing we were not supposed to be gay.

This did not help. I had homosexual attractions ever since I can remember. Going back to when I was five. I do not remember a time when I did not find a man more desirable than a woman. That means that all those things they said made me gay happened after I knew I was gay. All the group did for me was make me hate myself more, go into more secretive and destructive behavior, and not want to exist.

Through the grace of God I moved states and came to Colorado after college. I eventually found people who supported me, and a church that supported me for who I am and not what they thought I should be. It has been a long road and is still a journey I take with my loving and supportive husband.

Why do I share this story? To let you know of just a touch of atrocities that companies like Chick-fil-A commit on non-human animals but on their fellow humans as well. Don’t shop blindly and vote with your dollars blindly. Before you buy your next meal out, a car, or even your groceries look at what you are supporting. Ask the tough questions of what their policies are and whom they give to. Ask for documentation, especially if you are buying something big. I know I roll my eyes at my husband when he does this but love him even more for doing it. Do you want to be a part of something that is destructive and hurtful? Or do you want to be a part of something that brings love and compassion to the world?

I leave you with something from the Bible which relates to animal cruelty. The owners at Chick-fil-A don't bring up this part. Their entire chain supports animal cruelty, which is against biblical principle: “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for good. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and the creatures that move on the ground-everything that has the breath of life in it- I give every green plant for food” Genesis 1:29-30. Read on for yourself He never in the perfect world told us to eat animals, in fact he tells us to rule over them and we know a good ruler will not kill and eat his subjects. It was only after the fall that humans started eating animals.

As Dan always says, thanks for reading. We both are so grateful for all of the support we get from our readers!

This post originally appeared on Dan Hanley's website The Gay Vegans. Republished with permission.

TeesWithTude.com Proclaims August 1st “Chick-fil-gay Day”

TeesWithTude.com, the subtle, smart, and snarky tees & sweats web site, has proclaimed Wednesday, August 1 to be “Chick-fil-gay Day” across the United States of America. 

The folks at TeesWithTude.com were greatly disturbed by Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy’s decision to inject his religious beliefs into everyone’s favorite chicken sandwich, but were planning to stay out of the resulting brouhaha.  However, when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee called for a "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" on August 1^st, they decided they could no longer stay out of the fray. The company chose to fight back by calling for a “Chick-fil-Gay Day” on the same day to remind everyone that discrimination of any kind is never ok.

“We fully believe in Dan Cathy’s right to run his business as he see fit,” said Larry Peck, founder of TeesWithTude.com. “But we have a right to find their regressive homophobic beliefs extremely offensive, and we also have the right to mock them with our snarky Chick-fil-gay designs.  Besides,” he added, “it’s kind of fun.  Ok, it’s lot of fun!”

To show their continued support for the LGBT community, TeesWithTude.com will be donating 10% of all Chick-fil-gay design sales made on August 1-3  to GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network.

Chick-fil-A controversy grows as politicians weigh in

The national political fight over marriage equality is set to move to Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country next week, as LGBT advocates are planning boycotts and a “kiss-in,” and anti-gay politicians such as Rick Santorum are urging support for an “Appreciation Day” at the chain’s locations. 

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino wrote to the company urging it not to open a restaurant in his city, and one Chicago city councilman has vowed to block the chain’s expansion. The company’s COO recently said it opposes marriage rights for same-sex couples, and organizations associated with Chick-fil-A have donated millions to anti-gay groups.

HRC protests Chic-fil-A food truck!

The Human Rights Campaign – the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organization – staged a protest outside of a Chick-fil-A food truck in downtown Washington, D.C. last week. Nearly 30 HRC supporters gathered in front of the food truck to pass out fact sheets to customers and raise awareness about the millions of dollars the company has donated to anti-LGBT organizations.

Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy has embraced his fast food chain’s anti-LGBT discriminatory donations, declaring “guilty as charged” when questioned about them in a recent interview and even saying that supporting marriage equality was akin to “inviting God’s judgment on our nation.”

“HRC is sending a loud and clear message to Chick-fil-A: we will not rest until your consumers know that you take their money and hand it over to groups that actively work to demonize LGBT people,” said HRC Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz. “Consumers should have all the facts about Chick-fil-A’s anti-LGBT history, and then make informed decisions about whether they want to continue to support a business that proudly touts its connections to discriminatory groups. Organizations and elected officials from the Jim Henson Company to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino have already spoken out against Chick-fil-A’s practices – we look forward to hearing other fair-minded companies and organizations follow suit.”

Late last week, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino released a letter explaining why he could not support Chick-fil-A in his city; Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel soon followed suit and agreed that Chick-fil-A’s discriminatory practices didn’t have a place in Chicago. The Jim Henson Company also has severed business ties with Chick-fil-A.

Pictures from the protest are available via HRC’s Flickr stream.

Chick-fil-A: Straight guy offers to make out with gay guys at Kiss-In...

... and he's cute! (via Reddit)

Chick-fil-A: Picking teams when it's "us" versus "them"

By Todd Craig

This whole Chick-Fil-A controversy has induced a rallying cry by the religious right.  Recently, news reports have former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee urging like-minded Christians to support the company on August 1 in an effort to counter the recent bad-publicity the chain has received since its leader made statements that they are “guilty as charged” for supporting anti-gay organizations with their profits.

From Huckabee’s point of view, this is an us-versus-them moment.

But then I got to thinking about it?  Who really is on the anti-gay side any more?  And conversely, who’s on ours?

Let’s take a look, shall we?

For anti-gay team, their starting line up includes The Westboro Baptist Church and their leader Fred Phelps who has blamed the 9/11 attacks on gays, which is amongst their more timid of other stomach-churning statements.   And let’s not forget the other proud defenders of the faith they can proudly stand next to like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who both stated that gays caused natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.  Yes, they’ll have to be feeling proud to stand next to the intellectual forces of Fred, Jerry, and Pat.

But let’s not just pick on the religious crazies that make up their team.  Let’s talk about the world leaders gay-haters get to stand next to.  This list is pretty impressive, and their starting line up is pretty tough to beat.  First, there’s Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who insisted that Iran doesn’t torture homosexuals because there are none in Iran. Huh. Who knew?  I wonder where they all went, don’t you? 

Next, are the Ugandan warlords/politicians who, spurred on by U.S. religious wing-nuts like Rick Warren, have vowed to persecute, jail, and sentence the death penalty on same-sex loving people. Oh!  This is an impressive group, isn’t it??

And who’s that over there coming down the anti-gay red carpet?  Oh yes, gay-haters can rally along with Russian president Vladmir Putin whose government has recently cracked down on homosexual activity and messages in public. 

Russia, Iran, Uganda, oh my! 

They gotta be feeling pretty proud right about now.

Oh, and before we go, they also get to stand with Al Qaeda.  Yep.  Earlier this spring Al Qaeda threatened to turn the streets red with gays’ blood if a gay pride parade took place in Azerbaijan.

Feelin’ good about the company you keep yet, gay haters?

On the flip side of the coin, let’s look at who supports us gays.

Well, for starters we have the leaders of the free world on our side.  Yep.  We have the current president, vice-president, and secretary of state who are all for gay rights and gay marriage.  (I know, I know.  They’re all Democrats, you say.  But we also have the previous Republican vice-president, Dick Cheney, too.  Surprise!) 

I know you have the Boy Scouts and Chick-Fil-A and Wal-Mart's conservative leanings are well-documented.  That’s pretty sweet, I guess.  A quick glance at Wikipedia’s list of supporters of same-sex marriage page tells me our side is gonna have to be stuck with Apple, Microsoft, Pepsi, Coke, General Mills, Levi’s, Walt Disney, Amazon, Costco, J.C. Penny, Kraft, GM, Ford, Hilton, Home Depot, American, Delta, Southwest, and United Airlines, McDonalds, Applebees, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Starbucks, UPS, Google, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid. 

Pretty much every major company on the Fortune 500 this side of Wal-Mart.  And that's just for starters.

Oh, and the Girl Scouts.  So take that, haters.

According to the Huffington Post, our side will also have to suffer a few radicals as well.  We’ll get Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Charles Barkley, Steven Spielberg, Russell Simmons, Daniel Radcliff, and George Clooney for starters.

We’ll also have music from Eminem, Pink, Elton John, Queen, and the B-52s. 

We'll laugh heartily with Margaret Cho, Sarah Silverman, and Jon Stewart.  Yep, this is gonna be a killer party once it gets going, isn't it?

But how will we complete with countries like Russia, Iran, and Uganda in the gay-hate corner?

We’ll have to settle for entire countries that already have marriage equality like The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, and Argentina, and we’ll throw in Israel, France, Great Britain, Germany, New Zealand, Mexico, and Brazil that are all looking currently to expand the rights of their gay and lesbian citizenry.

We also get New England, Massachusetts, New York, the nation's capital, the cornfields of Iowa, and the west coast of the United States.  

So what’s the lesson to be had here?  If a person is supposedly defined by the company that he or she keeps, well, I’m guessing gays and their supporters will sleep pretty well knowing who their friends are and the direction that they're helping us all to go.

And for those who don’t support gay rights, they may want to look at that list of those who agree with them.  Fred Phelps, Ugandan warlords, and Al Qaeda may be extremists of anti-gay rhetoric and actions, but it's a microscopically thin line between supporting your religious beliefs and flat-out working to promote discrimination, hatred, and persecution.

To paraphrase the Italian proverb, when you keep company with good men, you’ll increase their number.

That’s why we gays and our supporters will always stand up against the likes of Chick-Fil-A, and it’s why we will win in the long run no matter how many people share a sandwich with Huckabee on August 1.

Because the good people are on our side, and they’re increasing in number.

Chick-Fil-A: On the frontlines of the culture wars

By Todd Craig

 

Yesterday, Facebook made me smile.

Today, it made me sad.  Sad because I noticed that my marriage rights were reduced to culture war-status as the religious right fired back against the Chick-Fil-A boycott movement.

Two people from my Facebook friends list posted a graphic saying, "I support Chick-Fil-A."

Normally, I let that sort of thing go.  I don't expect everybody to agree with me on every political issue.

But not today.  This time, it's personal.

So I wrote.  It's what I do.  Feel free to copy and paste this anywhere you see a "I support Chick-Fil-A" graphic on the internet:

The problem when you post a graphic saying that you support Chick-Fil-A is that you're supporting a company who uses their profits to support discriminatory laws against a specific segment of the American population.  These actions SEGREGATE.  These actions DISCRIMINATE - specifically against me, my husband, our son and families like mine.  Chick-Fil-A may have the right to do that, but that doesn't make it right.

It might feel good to choose a side in the culture wars, but in supporting Chick-Fil-A, you ally yourself with such blessed luminaries as the Westboro Baptist Church.  They're on your side, you know!  Aren't you proud?  Sure, your graphic doesn't say God Hates Fags, but it's now implied that you do. 

But on an even more serious note, there are over 1,000 rights and benefits that come with marriage at the federal level.  Chick-Fil-A uses their freedom to limit others' freedom in regard to those rights. That is unabashedly un-American.  If I don't follow your religious beliefs, the beautiful thing is that I don't have to go to your church.  That's freedom of religion! But I don't try to pass laws to limit your religion, nor do I support any businesses who would. Conversely, I hope that if you don't believe in gay marriage, then don't get one.  I wish you wouldn't try to pass laws limiting my family's freedom or support businesses who would. 

Apparently not, however.  I'm not going to lie, seeing this graphic hurts. It hurts terribly.

This whole thing isn't about Christians versus gays.  It's about the law.  It's about those 1000+ rights denied to hundreds of thousands (over 600,000 according to the last census) of gay and lesbian couples and our children.  We are hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who deserve nothing less than same treatment under the law. We are Americans after all, too.  We may not be equals in your belief system, but your belief system isn't the law.  We should all be equal in the eyes of the law regardless of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddist, or Atheist beliefs. That's American. 

That's why the outcry against Chick-Fil-A is so strong.  Freedom and equality in the eyes of the law are very much worth the outcry; it's supposed to be self-evident that we are all created equal, after all. 

And that's the ultimate definition of what it means to be an American.

Good As You takes on Chick-fil-A

A statement from fast-food chain Chick-fil-A sought to clarify the company's position on marriage politics after a controversy erupted over its policies, but Good as You blogger Jeremy Hooper's  investigation of the company and an associated foundation shows it has been involved with some of the country's top anti-gay marriage activists. 

"Chick-fil-A and the Cathy family really need to stop being so disingenuous," Hooper writes.