LGBT Activists Respond To Chick-Fil-A's Downtown Chicago Debut

Fried chicken enthusiasts in Chicago were delighted when Chick-fil-A's first location within city limits opened early Thursday morning. Hundreds lined up beginning Wednesday evening to be among the first customers of the 30 E. Chicago Avenue restaurant, but vegetarians were not the only Chicagoans who are likely passing on the celebration.

Earlier this year, the blogosphere was abuzz with news that the College Park, Ga.-based fast-food chain has actively supported several groups opposed to same-sex marriage. According to a report published by LGBT advocacy advocacy group Equality Matters in March, the company has provided more than $1.1 million of support to organizations who oppose gay marriage and other pro-LGBT provisions, such as Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund and Family Research Council -- a group which, in 2010, earned the Southern Poverty Law Center's "hate group" designation for its anti-LGBT messaging.

Further, the company regularly sponsors a marriage retreat through its WinShape Foundation for its employees that explicitly bars same-sex couples, as revealed in an e-mail exchange made public by the blog Good As You.

Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy in January stated his company has "no agenda against anyone" but acknowledged they have "a long history of trying to encourage and strengthen marriages and families, both within our Chick-fil-A system and with our customers."

"While my family and I believe in the Biblical definition of marriage, we love and respect anyone who disagrees," Cathy added.

But many LGBT activists remain unconvinced. Last month, organizers with GetEQUAL Illinois protested at the location of the new restaurant and distributed "coupons" detailing the company's history of "homo/transphobia … topped with workplace inequality" to passersby. The coupons were titled "Reserve your FREE Bigot-fil-A Deluxe." Similar protests were organized concurrently at other Chick-fil-A locations across the country, as the Windy City Times reported, and some colleges, including Indiana University South Bend, moved to ban the restaurant from their campuses in response to the controversy.

Lindsey Dietzler, a principal organizer of the Chicago protest against Chick-fil-A, said no follow-up actions outside of the newly opened store were currently planned but he encouraged the LGBT community and their supporters to continue to stand against the chain nonetheless.

"They've come out and said they're not actually anti-gay when their actions prove the opposite to be true," Dietzler said to HuffPost Chicago. "One of our most powerful forces as a community is our combined economic impact and if we hurt their pocketbooks, they will listen to us."

"But they don't have any reason to listen unless we act as a collective," he added.

Veteran gay organizer Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, too, hoped "people who give a damn about equal rights" will be conscious about the political affiliations of the businesses they patronize.

"Chick-fil-A has gone to some great lengths to hide their relationships [with these groups]. They want to have their anti-gay cake and eat it too. The question is whether we, as a community, will be stupid enough to fall for it," Thayer told HuffPost Chicago.

And for those who support the LGBT community but say, "It's just a chicken sandwich," Thayer encouraged them to turn elsewhere for their fried fix.

"Realize that you have choices, so why not make them?" he added.

According to a Chicago Tribune report, the new downtown Chick-fil-A is just the first of at least 18 planned to be opened in the area over the next three years as Chicago is "a focal point in the chain's growth strategy." The company, which is closed on Sundays largely for religious reasons, is now the second-largest limited-service chicken chain in the company and is slowly gaining ground on the industry's long-time leader, KFC.

In 2002, the company also received flak when one former store manager, a Muslim man, alleged he was fired when he refused to participate in a group prayer to Jesus Christ during a company training program. The suit was, according to Forbes, settled on undisclosed terms.

Comments

[JasonTromm]

11:39 AM on 07/12/2011

Once again we have liberals shouting, "We will not tolerate intolerance!" without even realizing the irony of what they're saying. Chick-fil-A has every right to run their business however they want. They don't have to answer to the LGBT community in any way.

[commenter80]

12:31 PM on 07/15/2011

It's true that Chick-fil-A has the right to run their business as they see fit. However, potential customers, if they disagree with those business decisions, also have the rights not to patronize that business and let others know about those objectionable business practices. Chick-fil-A does answer to its customers.

[Kmrort]

11:49 PM on 06/30/2011

I will continue to eat there!!! A great place that has morals.

[Laughert9]

11:13 PM on 06/21/2011

No issue here with Sunday closings but I'll stop going based on anti-gay support.

[swingvoterca]

12:02 AM on 06/20/2011

if your religious dogma teaches that homosexuality is immoral - along with sex before marriage, adultery and divorce - how could that possibly not find expression in your actions? and how would that expression not be perceived by others who don't share that view as somehow discriminatory (or for the supremely intellectually lazy, "hateful")? this is an irreconcilable standoff off world views.

traditional judeo-christian teachings including these sexual mores are an integral part of the heritage of western civilization. we are all supposed to remain celibate until we are married (to someone of the opposite sex) and then monogamous with our spouse until we die. the sexual revolution has systematically removed the stigma from each of the many ways we violate that ideal. whether our popular culture can survive these libertine changes in sexual attitudes over the long haul remains to be answered.

we automatically assume that as a society we are better off for being more "tolerant" and "inclusive". i am mostly convinced that that is indeed the case - but not entirely. phenomena like our now massive percentage of out of wedlock births, the uber-sexualization of popular culture, etc make me wonder if given the human condition, we are not perhaps just a *touch* too free? i wonder if the excesses of our live-and-let-live culture will somehow generate a desire for pushback of control to not allow us as individuals to so easily do and be some things we now take for granted.

time will tell.

[littlebrowngirl]

11:34 PM on 06/19/2011

Boycotting yummy chicken is not the way to advance the cause.

[stanton89]

11:04 PM on 06/19/2011

Gay marriage should be illegal!

[ChiGuy]

08:19 PM on 06/19/2011

If well organized, the LGBT community could have a major affect on changing the landscape with regard to retailers who either practice discrimination or support others who do. But solidarity is key.

Target has suffered no real financial harm because while the company's support of anti-LGBT organizations fueled initial outrage, it quickly became back page news due to an apparent sense that  gays made their point and that that was all that was needed, and I fear that this effort versus Chick-Fil-A will garner similar results.

We MUST keep the pressure on!

[Wake Up Call]

02:06 PM on 06/19/2011

Don't eat there. Drive them into bankruptcy. Pass the word.

[Gaye Tannenbaum]

01:59 PM on 06/19/2011

If the writer agrees with your cause - you're an advocate

If the writer disagrees with your cause - you're an activist with an agenda

[valgaavmiko]

01:41 PM on 06/19/2011

Thank you, Bob, for your second point. I'm constantly treated poorly as soon as someone finds out I'm Christian (Christian Darwinist anyway) even though I have gay and transgendered friends and family and I'm bisexual myself.

Personally, I won't vote on the gay marriage issue because I feel that it is incomplete. Polygamist marriages and even incestuous marriages, regardless of a person's feelings on them, should also legal under similar and identical arguments for gay marriage. Until they include that in legislation, I just won't vote. Constitutionally, and regardless of how it plays into an individual's religious and personal morality, all should be legal under what we, ourselves, voted to be protected statuses.

[delmis123]

02:45 PM on 06/19/2011

no offense bro,but it's not possible to be a christian and homosexual (or bisexual for that matter).homosexuality is a sin,and christains are to abstain from sin (part of being a christian is giving up our old sinful ways to live God's way,which is what repentance of sin basically comes down to). read Romans 1:26-32

[fair and square]

01:40 PM on 06/19/2011

What happened to FREEDOM? Does it apply only to certain groups? Why do we have to force a certain lifestyle on others? Can we all just get along? You do your thing and I do mine. Get rid of the anger. As long as there is no harm done to anybody, if you like chicken, just eat it.

[dm60462]

03:40 AM on 06/19/2011

I love Chik-Fil-A for its values (and tasty sandwiches). Happy to see a retail establishment give its workers Sundays off.

[dm60462]

03:37 AM on 06/19/2011

I

[mushimom]

11:50 PM on 06/18/2011

A message to those families who eat at this establishment....since it is so family oriented...If u see a same sex couple, who have children and are having a wonderful loving family meal....I hope that u can crack a smile, and realize they are not hurting u or pushing their lifestyle....It is about having the same rights as we as hetro's take for granted....being Gay is not contagious...yet I wish it was...would of saved me some grief...but alas...I can't change who I am or who I desire...tolerence....practice what u preach...

[Bob Brown 1969]

10:02 PM on 06/18/2011

I think we need to clarify some points regularly made in this comment section

1) it is not intolerant to oppose intolerance
2) Christians can be Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered, so a Christian is not necessarily anti-Gay.
3) Discrimination against GLBT is Homophobia, by definition

[Kittyburger]

10:10 PM on 06/18/2011

4) It is not hate to oppose hate
5) Equal legal rights for all should be the agenda of the whole society
6) There is no "Gay Agenda"

[Ioan Lightoller]

10:20 PM on 06/18/2011

Exactly. Our only "agenda" if it can even be called one, is EQUALITY.