Chick-Fil-A's Indirect Connection To Recent Anti-LGBTQ+ Donations Has People Upset
Pride Month managed to begin with a bang, albeit an unsurprising one. On June 1, Scott Bixby of The Daily Beast revealed that the ever stalled Equality Act, which would make any discrimination based on an individual's sexual or gender identity illegal, has continued to be stymied by vast amounts of money, much of which is donated by the National Christian Charitable Fund (NCF). A sizable donor to the NFC, Bixby found, is Dan Cathy, the owner of Chick-fil-A.
This information has come out a year-and-a-half after reports that Chick-fil-A had ceased donating to groups with expressed anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies. However, as a fact check conducted by Snopes at the time showed, Chick-fil-A had not promised to stop such donations, but had merely reorganized their donation strategy, which meant that certain organizations with anti-LGBTQ+ views, such as the Salvation Army, would no longer receive money, as well as other groups that did not share such antagonistic relations with the community. In short, Chick-fil-A made no effort to stop what they have always been doing and the current furor is just the realization that nothing has changed.
Of course, such technicalities pale in importance in the eyes of most when the recipient of that money spends it on burying an anti-discrimination bill in the turgid mud that is the United States Senate.
Upset over donations probably doesn't matter to Chick-fil-A's Dan Cathy
The social media backlash Chick-fil-A has received over Dan Cathy's donations proves nothing new to a company that has struggled to even get a foothold in other countries due to the regressive views espoused by its owners.
Business Insider wrote about how some have started to share copycat recipes for the Chick-fil-A sauce and to tell their straight friends that they can no longer plead ignorance about their purchases. The problem of donations fueling the stoppage of the Equality Act go further than Chick-fil-A, however. As Business Insider proceeded to note, money given by McDonald's, Wendy's, and the Outback Steakhouse-owning Bloomin' Brands, among others, have all given money to Republican members of Congress who have opposed the legislation. While Chick-fil-A is undoubtedly the most prominent presence in terms of anti-LGBTQ+ corporations, the business-friendly environment desired by the others comes at the cost of arrested social progress.
More troubling to those who would wage Twitter war is that enough Americans do not seem to care what Cathy does with his money, as the chicken sandwiches are apparently that good. In August 2020, Forbes reported how Chick-fil-A managed to regain its No. 3 spot on QSR's rankings due, in part, to such customer loyalty. Conceivably, this could change, as the avalanche of headlines about the chicken sandwich wars indicates that Chick-fil-A no longer has a monopoly on the chicken sandwich market. However, if that's the bright side, Pride Month has opened with sobering news, indeed.