By Naya Payne
Eating at Chick-fil-A is an act that supports hate, and it is disingenuous and hurtful to not acknowledge it as such.
My writing on this subject spawned from an advertisement on campus that was floating around for a couple of weeks: “Chick-fil-Ambassadors: Come have some Chick-fil-A and apply for ambassadors!”
Now, this is not the first time an affiliation/organization/group on campus bought and used Chick-fil-A for an event and marketing. Just a couple of semesters ago, COMPASS used Chick-fil-A regularly for its events, and I remember relaying my criticisms to the leaders of that organization as well.
So when I saw the USF ambassadors promoting one of their events using Chick-fil-A in 2020 — after assumedly knowing all that the corporation has done and supported — I couldn’t help but feel worthless and invalid in their eyes.
I felt compelled as an LGBT student, and as an ardent defender of equality, to stand up and say something. In my private message to the ambassadors’ Instagram account, I expressed my concerns and received this response:
“I’m sorry that you feel this way and thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We want to make sure that you and everyone else knows that we are a group of diverse students from various backgrounds including the LGBTQ community. We are accepting and love all the wonderfully diverse people that make up our university.”
Ouch.
I know that the ambassadors might have meant well with this message, but this comes off as nothing more than an empty platitude with no action or change to back it up.
I urge the ambassadors and every other organization at USF to commit to severing ties with Chick-fil-A, and refusing to purchase from them in honor of and in solidarity with ALL students on campus.
You cannot say that you love someone while actively supporting their oppression; that is not how it works. You must commit to practicing that love in all facets of life, especially in this era with hatred and bigotry on the rise.
It is not enough to just “not be racist, sexist or homophobic” — we have to actively and continually be anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic, denouncing any form of bigotry at all times.
Chick-fil-A’s bigotry first came into the public eye in 2012, when the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer, Dan Cathy, spoke out against same-sex marriage on “The Ken Coleman Show.”
“We’re 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,” Cathy said. “And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about.”
Even after the backlash that he received for his comments, Cathy dug his heels in, reiterating that he is in favor of “the biblical definition of the family unit.”
Shortly after these public comments, it was revealed that Chick-fil-A had been donating millions of dollars to anti-LGBT organizations through their “charitable” WinShape Foundation since 2003. These organizations include but are not limited to:
- The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which prohibits its employees from engaging in “homosexual acts;”
- The Salvation Army, which, according to an article in the Huffington Post has:
- Stated publicly: “Scripture opposes homosexual practices by direct comment and also by clearly implied disapproval. The Bible treats such practices as self-evidently abnormal … Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God’s will for society.”
- In 1986, campaigned against the “Homosexual Law Reform Act” in New Zealand, which legalized gay sex;
- In 1998, turned down $3.5 million dollars due to refusing to comply with a local ordinance that prohibited discrimination in spousal benefits to employees. This refusal to comply with the ordinance resulted in the ending of programs aimed to assist the homeless and seniors;
- In 2001, begged the Bush administration to allow the organization to continue to receive federal funding even though it actively discriminates against gay people;
- In 2012, denounced same-sex marriage, and fired an employee after finding out that she was bisexual;
- In 2012, a media relations director for the organization implied that gay people deserve death and later denied it after public backlash;
- In 2013, promoted “conversion therapy” on its website;
- Faced numerous accusations of turning away LGBT individuals from their shelters, engaged in discriminatory behavior, and lobbied against LGBT rights.
- The Family Research Council, which is classified as an “anti-gay hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center;
- Exodus International, which was an organization devoted to harmful “conversion therapy.”
These are just a few examples of where your money goes when you buy that average chicken sandwich and subpar lemonade. Your dollars actively fund bigotry, hatred and death.
There are reasons why the suicide rate among LGBT people is higher than the average population, and why LGBT people have been facing an uptick of hate crimes in recent years. Institutionalized homophobia that is funded and sustained by organizations that Chick-fil-A keeps in its company has a real-world effect on actual living and breathing people with feelings.
Chick-fil-A announced late last year that it would stop funding The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in 2020, but we need to critically analyze this for what it is.
When Cathy first made his bigoted comments and the corporation’s donations came to light in 2012, Chick-fil-A announced shortly after that they would stop donating to anti-LGBT organizations.
This, however, was quickly uncovered to be a lie, as the company still continued to donate to anti-LGBT causes and organizations. So, how are we supposed to trust it now when it has already gone back on its promises before?
Not to mention that its announcement was not a condemnation of anti-LGBT practices and organizations, but was instead an alleged budgetary update for 2020. Chick-fil-A also later announced that it may continue to donate to these anti-LGBT groups in the future, and would not rule out completely severing ties with them.
And even if it did truly stop all of its bigoted antics, that still does not make up for all of the damage that it has already caused.
In honor of solidarity and the spirit of Black History Month, I end this with a harking back to Martin Luther King’s statement on “the white moderate” in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail:”
“I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom [is] … the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice … who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ … who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
We can espouse ‘diversity and inclusion’ as a pillar and shout ‘you belong here,’ but it means absolutely nothing if we settle for lukewarm acceptance, resist addressing problems and instituting change, and don’t actively strive for the goals of total and utter equality. Let us all aspire to not be like the “white moderate,” or in this case, “the straight moderate.”
