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Emily Schmall at Forbes.com has an interesting piece on the anti-gay fast food giant Chick-Fil-A. The purveyor of waffle fries with a side of bible-based bigotry has been for ages engaging in perfectly legal and ethically questionable ways of ensuring its franchisees adhere to their “Christian” point of view business model. And this was long before Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathy decided to open his piehole about marriage equality.
The Forbes article digs deep into how controlling the franchise system of Chick-Fil-A works.
The parent company asks people who apply for an operator license to disclose marital status, number of dependents and involvement in “community, civic, social, church and/or professional organizations.”
But Danielle Alderson, 30, a Baltimore operator, says some fellow franchisees find that Chick-fil-A butts into its workers’ personal lives a bit much. She says she can’t hire a good manager who, say, moonlights at a strip club because it would irk the company. “We are watched very closely by Chick-fil-A,” she says. “It’s very weird.”
Is it legal?
There are no federal laws that prohibit companies from asking nosy questions about religion and marital status during interviews. Most companies don’t because it can open them up to discrimination claims, says James Ryan, a spokesman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chick-fil-A has more freedom to ask whatever it wants of franchisees because they are independent contractors and not necessarily subject to federal employment discrimination laws. (Employees, however, may sue under those laws.)
Here are the EEOC Q&As about discriminatory practices. Chick-Fil-A has been sued a dozen times (with a sex discrimination lawsuit slapped on it this year). In one Houston case, a Muslim store manager was fired for not participating in a “group prayer to Jesus Christ at a company training program in 2000.” It was settled out of court. It’s kind of odd that anyone who is not Christian would make it past the gauntlet of interviews it takes to be hired at Chick-Fil-A. The interview process is apparently grueling, with its goal to root out the “immoral” people who don’t have its religious world view, and, likely to keep the organization out of court by screening these folks over and over to get them to volunteer personal information.
Many Chick-fil-A job candidates must endure a yearlong vetting process that includes dozens of interviews. Ty Yokum, the training manager for the chain, sat through 7 interviews and didn’t get the job. He reapplied in 1991 and was subjected to another 17 interviews–the final one lasted five hours–and was hired. Bureon Ledbetter, Chick-fil-A’s general counsel, says the company works hard to select people like Yokum, who “fit.” “We want operators who support the values here,” Ledbetter says.
It’s not just TEH GAY that this business is “cleansing” itself of.
UPDATE: To answer comments in the thread that this is just a free speech matter, let’s review how it is not, via ThinkProgress.
Here are the basic facts about Chick-fil-A in regards to LGBT issues:
- Chick-fil-A has given at least $5 million to anti-gay organizations, including known hate groups and proponents of ex-gay therapy, since 2003, including almost $2 million in both 2009 and 2010.
- 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. Now, Chick-fil-A said last week that it will “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender,” which sounds nice, but as the HRC score indicates, there is nothing to substantiate such a claim. There is no policy on the company’s books that actually protects LGBT people from discrimination, and funding hate groups cannot be justified as “honor, dignity, and respect.”
Don’t get me wrong – I love the chain’s food and miss the diet lemonade greatly. But it’s a company that will fire its gay employees at will. Would it be fine if you had a friend or relative fired by a Chick-Fil-A. Is that OK with you as you munch on those waffle fries?
12 Comments
Ok, a couple of things. First, when I was younger and working in places like Boston Market, I always wanted to work at Chick-fil-A because they had a permanent day off every week. I didnt care why they did I just cared about being able to plan my life a little more myself than being at the discretion of my manager.
Second, they do make a good chicken sandwich. Just like vegetarians, I will support your right to complain about this company like I support people for not eating meat. But I eat meat and sometimes in the form of chick-fil-a sandwiches.
Pam, I’m usually on your side……. but,
I really like their cole slaw. THe chicken and those funny fries that looklike they were run over by a motorcycle tire, I could take or leave that. I do admire the fact that they are closed on Sundays,
I haven’t eaten at a Chick-Fil-A since the late 1970′s because of their religious bs…
Chick does support community events for special needs kids here in San Diego. As a free speech advocate, I support the owner’s right to believe what he wishes. He is catholic I believe so he is merely following church doctrine. So long as he is not violating any laws I don’t have a big issue with this. Obviously those who do are free to not patronize the business.
I addressed some of the comments in an update to the post.
Interesting Pam. This does present a frequent conundrum. That is the line we draw for support for an organization or company that does provide good things in the community, while they support some things we don’t like or disagree with.
And again with the “right to believe” nonsense. This isn’t about what they think or believe. It’s about what they do.
I will participate in today’s support of Chik Fil A today by ordering my personal favorite – a Spicy Chicken Cool Wrap. My support is not pro or con gay issues, but is in support of the right of anyone or any organization to express their opinion without being villainized or ostracized for it. I cannot find any proof that CFA has “discriminated” in any significant way against any particular group of people or belief, although I’m sure, like all businesses of similar size, there may be a limited number of issues. If they did so, it would certainly be blared across all the INet and other MSM headlines and emphasized in this article. And even if they had discriminatory employment practices, there are already numerous laws in place to fight those practices.
This is 100% about discrimination against any person or group who expresses a “politically incorrect” opinion and nothing more, and really brings to light the intolerance of liberal thinking.
Wow, here’s someone who still thinks the term “politically correct” has some sort of traction in modern debate. You know what it means? It means bothering to respect other people. That’s all. So those of you who complain about it, are the ones responsible for why it exists. You insist on forcing your right to be douchebags, and you’re questioning why it’s not tolerated? It will always be met with resistance because no one wants to be disrespected any more than you do. So yes, political correctness is still demanded and your circular pseudo logic is insufficient to cause anyone to knuckle under, you must be on drugs to think that. As far as the intolerance of liberal thinking, how monumentally pathetic that was. But those of us who don’t watch Fox News and therefor aren’t prone to logical fallacies won’t shift from understanding that to not tolerate a murderer, child rapist, is not the same as not tolerating someone based on traits they were simply born with and can do nothing about. If you insist on victimizing other people, yeah, expect that not to be tolerated.
It’s both obvious and scientifically proven that those who forfeit reason and rationale for rabid adherence to ideology do so because of limited intellectual capacity and therefor find it easiest to simply invest in pre-fabricated over-simplified ideological thinking. Those of us interested in human progress, naturally don’t promote OR tolerate such a thing. So yeah, I own up to that intolerance, because it makes sense. Yours doesn’t.
OMG, what a tool. People aren’t pissed about the guy having an opinion on gay sex marriage, their pissed about him going public during such a politically volatile moment. They’re pissed about the fact that he represents a massive number of right wing oriented businesses who have opted to donate millions to right wing causes, at the expense of hiring more employees, which also keeps unemployment high as an artificial jab to Obama. THIS is what makes him a douchebag, far more than the viewpoint itself. Because to genuine Christians, not the right-wing think tank generated hateful pseudo-Christians, homosexuals aren’t a higher priority than child abductors and murderers, which you’ll notice, the ruling class doesn’t seem to care too much about, they prefer to attack non-threatening targets as divisive tactics and blame God for their errant priorities and overt bigotry.
Those who pretend that the systematic hyperpartisan destruction of America isn’t a problem, who still want to believe that everything comes down to right vs left, are the problem. Get your heads out of your asses and wake up to the reality that the ruling class is orchestrating this dissension among the (m)asses, creating divisiveness to keep us divided and conquered, controllable and predictable, blaming each other for the clandestine crimes THEY’RE in fact committed, such as buying our legislators and staging for-profit wars under false pretenses.
The Chick Fil A guy isn’t being indicted for being against gay marriage, I’m giving him the middle finger for being another divisive jackass, as if America needs any more of that.
I make a good pumpkin pie. Glad to know I could sh*t in your shoes and make you wear them and all would be forgiven because your values are rooted in the taste of food.
OMG, what a tool. People aren’t pissed about the guy having an opinion on gay sex marriage, their pissed about him going public during such a politically volatile moment. They’re pissed about the fact that he represents a massive number of right wing oriented businesses who have opted to donate millions to right wing causes, at the expense of hiring more employees, which also keeps unemployment high as an artificial jab to Obama. THIS is what makes him a douchebag, far more than the viewpoint itself.
Lemme guess, on the other hand riot police have a right to pepper pray and fire rubber bullets at Occupy Wall Street because you don’t agree with them, I’m in right? You’re just another hyperpartisan moronic American digging your own grave.