MARCH 20, 2019 BY MICHAEL STONE
Chick-fil-A still hates gay people: Chick-fil-A, a southern-style chicken sandwich franchise and a self-identified Christian company, gave over $1.8 million to anti-gay Christian hate groups in 2017.
Think Progress reports:
Chick-fil-A has taken great pains to downplay its anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and giving, seven years into a national boycott by LGBTQ and allied diners. But contrary to the company’s latest claims that it has no political or social agenda, newly released tax filings show that, in 2017, the Chick-fil-A Foundation gave more than $1.8 million to a trio of groups with a record of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
The donations — $1,653,416 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and $150,000 to the Salvation Army — actually represent a slight increase from the previous year
That’s right, despite repeated claims from the company that they are no longer anti-gay, they continue to actively support and fund anti-gay Christian hate groups.
Late last year Rider University in New Jersey joined many other institutions of higher learning and denied the fast food restaurant a potential on-campus location because of“the company’s record widely perceived to be in opposition to the LGBTQ community.”
In response, Chick-fil-A issued a statement claiming:
We have no policy of discrimination against any group, and we do not have a political or social agenda.
However the money tells a different story. For example, Chick-fil-A gave more than $1.6 million in 2017 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a religious organization which “imparts a strongly anti-LGBTQ message.”
In addition, the foundation also gave more than $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, a Georgia-based “transformative organization” that operates an anti-gay “Christian residential home for troubled youth” and uses propaganda associated with harmful and discredited “ex-gay” therapy.
Also on the list, Chick-fil-A Foundation gave at least $150,000 to the Salvation Army, a conservative Christian organization with a long history of anti-LGBTQ housing discrimination, opposition to same-sex marriage equality, and supporting exemptionsfrom non-discrimination ordinances.
In fact, Chick-fil-A has a long and well documented history of promoting discrimination against members of the gay and lesbian community. In the past Chick-fil-A donated considerable resources to anti-gay causes, including Christian extremist organizations labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And in the past Chick-fil-A has supported multiple anti-gay Christian extremist organizations, including the Focus on the Family Institute, the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage, the Pennsylvania Family Institute, Exodus International and the Family Research Council. These groups are some of the most vehement and vicious anti-gay groups in the country.
Bottom line: Chick-fil-A, the Christian fast food restaurant whose corporate purpose is to “glorify God,” continues to support anti-gay groups and organizations.
