I love Chic-Fil-A. I enjoy its food, service, and atmosphere, and it's by a considerable margin my favorite fast food resaturant. I swear by its lemonade and milkshakes.
I was understandably distressed, then, when a good friend encouraged me to stop patronizing the company because, she claimed, it was actively anti-gay.
I consider myself a strong gay rights supporter. I think gays should have the right to marry and, more importantly, that the government has no place regulating marriage anyway. The thought that the money I paid for my waffle fries could be going towards anti-gay rights causes horrified me even more than the thought of never having another buttery, flaky chicken biscuit.
Before completely giving it up, however, I decided to do a little research. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find much hard, reliable evidence. I've had to dig through a lot of angry gay bloggers who seem to be jumping to conclusions without substantially backing up their arguments. Those that bother to source their claims tend to point to this article by Equality Matters, a gay rights organization.
What I found forms the basis of my quandary. The article lists the 7 largest "ant-gay" beneficiaries of Chic-Fil-A. However, from the best I can tell, most of these organizations may have officially anti-gay stances but don't actually do anything actively anti-gay.
The Marriage & Family Legacy Fund is a wing of the Marriage Commission. It recieves more than all the other beneficiaries put together, and seems more interested in marriage counceling than anti-gay actions, though it won't assist gay couples.
The second most amount of money goes to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which provides scholarship, assistance, Christian fellowsip, and other services to high school and college athletes. While it too has an officially anti-gay stance, its worst sin seems to be offering counceling to those who are "sexually confused."
As you go down the list, the story seems to repeat itself. The beneficiaries are charities and philanthropic organizations that seem to mostly be doing a lot of good. They have policies and make statements that are anti-gay, but seem to focus on their charitable work more than their rhetoric.
My reseach was only cursory, so I was wondering if anyone else had more information or insight. I don't want to be funding anti-gay causes, but so far it mostly looks like Chic-Fil-A is probably spending its money more responsibly than most large companies. Am I just fooling myself because I want those chicken nuggets so bad?
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