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Eat no’ mo’ anti-homo chicken. That’s the word that students from seven schools across country are saying with the launch of petitions demanding removal or prevention of Chick-fil-A franchises from campuses. Change.org announced that officials at the University of Illinois, University of Kansas, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Ball State University, College of Charleston, Wichita State University, and Minnesota State University are now under pressure to take a stand.
“In the last several days, the president of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy, reaffirmed the company’s anti-gay marriage stance and their allocation of funds to support organizations countering the marriage equality movement,” wrote James Castle, a recent graduate of the University of Kansas, in his petition on Change.org. “Because Chick-fil-A’s stance on gay rights could create a hostile environment for queer youth and allies, having a Chick-fil-A on campus deeply conflicts with The University of Kansas Mission on Values and the Chancellor’s and Provost’s personal commitments to diversity at KU.”
Chick-fil-A’s charitable arm, The WinShape Foundation, has long been a supporter of organizations that aim to ban same-sex marriage. Through WinShape and direct charitable donations, Chick-fil-A is reported to have given more than $2 million to anti-gay groups.
While Chick-fil-A howls now about being persecuted for its “Christian” business model, Think Progress reminds the media that it’s not just about the company’s public view about marriage equality. It’s a company that believes in anti-gay discrimination as policy.
- Chick-fil-A has a 0 rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which signifies that the company does not offer one protection, one benefit, or even one diversity training for its LGBT employees.
- Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy openly admitted that he would probably fire any employee who “has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members.”
- It has recently come to light (thanks to Jeremy Hooper) that current Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy has used the following language to describe supporters of same-sex marriage:
- “We are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”
- “I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”
- “We see all the twisted up kind of stuff that’s going on. Washington trying to redefine the definition of marriage and all the other kinds of things.”
- “We are suffering the consequences of a society and culture who has not acknowledged God or not thanked God—he’s left us to a deprived mind. It’s tragic and we live in a culture of that today.”
That is outright condemnation. That is open discrimination.
And, as we learned yesterday, Chick-fil-A is embroiled (or is it fried?) in another unsurprising controversy – gender discrimination. GLAAD:
Former Chick-Fil-A employee Brenda Honeycutt is suing Chick-Fil-A for wrongful termination based on gender discrimination. According to a lawsuit which is circulating today on Twitter, on June 27, 2011, owner and operator of Duluth, GA’s Chick-Fil-A restaurants Jeff Howard terminated Honeycutt, whose employee performance was satisfactory-to-above satisfactory, so that she could be a “stay home mother.”
Honeycutt was terminated by Howard after meetings with restaurant management (during which she was not present), and was replaced by a male employee. The lawsuit cites a pattern of discrimination against female employees, who, after being terminated, were also replaced by male employees in Northern Georgia’s Chick-Fil-A restaurants.
But the fans of the chain are stepping up for Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day (August 1), with Mike Huckabee and now Rick Santorum lending their considerable bible-beating power to the party:
So Mr. Cathy’s statements might have passed without much notice except that Carly McGehee, a New Yorker, decided to stage a same-sex kiss-in on Aug. 3, urging gays and lesbians to show up at the company’s 1,600 restaurants around the country in protest.
That moved Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to declare Aug. 1 as Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. His call to action, which he posted on Facebook last week, garnered such a response that it tripped the site’s spam filters, and the page was taken down briefly on Tuesday.
Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate, has now jumped in. On Wednesday, he rallied his 200,000 Twitter followers: “With two of my boys, Enjoying chick-in-strips and an awesome peach shake at Chick-fil-A. See you here next Wednesday!”
Well we know who won’t be at Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day – Bert and Ernie:
The Jim Henson Company, which created toys for the chain, will not offer any more Muppets. On Friday, it said Lisa Henson, the chief executive officer, supported same-sex marriage and would donate money that the company had received from Chick-fil-A to theGay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
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The last time we had a Chick-Fil-A flare up in Jan 2011 there were also campuses that tried to get the stores removed.
That time the company was accused of anti-gay discriminatory practices in their franchisee application process and in the operation of their family foundation.
http://www.projectqatlanta.com/news_articles/view/chick-fil-a_president_misleads_on_gay_marriage?gid=7369
“Chick-fil-A continued over the weekend to defend itself against charges that the Atlanta-based restaurant chain is anti-gay, with its president contradicting his own family foundation about whether it accepts gay couples.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/us/30chick.html?src=twrhp&pagewanted=all
“The company’s Christian culture and its strict hiring practices, which require potential operators to discuss their marital status and civic and church involvement, have attracted controversy before, including a 2002 lawsuit brought by a Muslim restaurant owner in Houston who said he was fired because he did not pray to Jesus with other employees at a training session. The suit was settled”
Western WA University has the only chick-fil-a location in Washington state. Hope they get on the ball to get the store removed.
You can add The University of Maryland to the list. Please sign our petition here.
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2012/07/chick-fil-politics-and-social-media-cautionary-tale
Few knew that founder Truett Cathy had firm opinions about the personal lives of the owners of Chick-fil-A’s 1,600 franchises and their employees. He preferred them married, and expected adherence to the company’s stated mission to “glorify God.”
“Family members of prospective operators — children, even — are frequently interviewed so Cathy and his family can learn more about job candidates and their relationships at home,” Forbes reported in 2007, when Cathy was 86.
” ‘If a man can’t manage his own life, he can’t manage a business,’ says Cathy, who says he would probably fire an employee or terminate an operator who ‘has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members.’
Hasn’t everyone, including Cathy, sinned at some point, according to their religion? His mother should have fired him from the womb.
Don’t like Chick-fil-a, don’t eat there, but don’t tell those that do that they have no right to be on campus. Mr. Cathy has every right to his opinions and to express those opinions. I don’t like the politics of any number of businesses. I don’t spend my money there, but I sure as hell don’t believe that I have the right to dictate where they do business.
They don’t have the right to be on a campus if their corporate practices go against the anti-discrimination policies of the campus.
I keep seeing people posting that same tired canard everywhere but here’s the question. If he was a member of the KKK and was doing exactly the same thing to blacks, would that be okay? What about if he was a member of the American Nazi (I don’t know if they still exist due to the Blues Brothers totally trashing them) Party and he was doing that to minorities would that be okay? Being a member of a church doesn’t give someone a free pass. It’s time to stop acting like being religious gives people special rights.
Funny, it doesn’t seem that long since Huckabee was promoting veggies and speaking out against greasy unhealthy chain fast food. But it was about 10 years ago he went on his health food kick, right? Now he seems to have reached a different assessment of which side his political bread is greased on.