Eater reports that America's
The store is scheduled to open at the end of the month (Happy Pride!) and while one more fast food franchise wouldn't normally be news, this is semi-notable because Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A's president, is a notorious hater of gays. Cathy has given millions to groups that oppose same-sex marriage and has previously said that he supports “the biblical definition of the family unit,” which, I assume, means he thinks fathers should demand their prospective sons-in-law to present the patriarch with a bouquet of 100 foreskins before he'll allow the couple to marry. Or maybe he's more into the family unit in which a dad asks a mob to rape his daughters instead of the angels they'd rather rape instead? Either way, dude is a major Jesus freak, and while he backed away from some of his previous anti-gay sentiments after people started protesting his chicken shack, the company isn't exactly known for its progressive values.
Will there be protests when Chick-fil-A opens its doors? It's certainly possible—Seattle loves a good picket, although Bitter Lake is kinda out of the way and people were so excited for fried chicken and waffle fries when the company opened up in Federal Way that they actually camped out overnight to get it, but I've always found it interesting which businesses we choose to boycott and which we do not. The president of Chick-fil-A has some crazy and clearly bigoted beliefs, to be sure, but tons of other corporations have donated to anti-gay politicians and no one pitches a fit about it on Twitter, much less starts a boycott. Even worse, some of these companies do it while promoting themselves as pro-gay.
This hypocrisy is never on full display as much as it is this time of year, when companies dutifully change their social media avatars to rainbow flags and tell their queer employees to march in gay Pride parades while also donating to politicians who support anti-queer legislation. Over at Popular Information, someone compiled a post with a breakdown of companies that profess their support for the queer community while donating to lawmakers who vote to deny or rollback LGBTQ protections. AT&T, according to the post, donated $2.7 million to 193 anti-gay politicians between 2017 and 2018; UPS donated $2.4 million to 159 anti-gay politicians; Comcast donated $2.1 million to 154 anti-gay pols; and on and on and on and on and on. It's what corporations do: They pander and market and make you think that by putting up a rainbow flag once a month, they are anything but money-hungry, bottom-feeding corporate swine.
Now, this doesn't mean I'll be frequenting Chick-fil-A (it's not that good, and where the hell is Bitter Lake?), and I fully support anyone who chooses to wage some kind of protest against this company coming to Seattle. But at the same time, if you're going to boycott Chick-fil-A for being anti-gay, you may want to consider boycotting companies that wave Pride flags while donating to politicians who harm actual queer people.
