A Chick-fil-A logo is seen on a take out bag at one of its restaurants . (Mandel Ngan/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Dear Civilities: I was wondering whether you could help my husband and me resolve a marital dispute. We are a liberal Virginia couple in our 30s with a wonderful circle of friends, both gay and straight. The issue is that my husband loves a certain purveyor of chicken sandwiches and waffle fries that has an anti-gay stance. Watching my gay friends have to travel to different states to be legally married, struggle through finding “friendly” judges to approve their adoptions, and generally not have the same marital rights as I have for the past 15 years is enough to make me never step foot into one of the franchises again. My husband, however, loves this place — not for its values, but for the food. Is there any way he can enjoy this particular establishment without feeling guilty? For example, what if he donated an amount equal to what he spends there to a gay rights organization such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) every time he patronized this place? Would that be an appropriate offset? — Anonymous
A: Your husband is not alone in wondering whether it’s ethically okay to make a pit stop for Chick-fil-A’s chicken sandwich and waffle fries. At issue is the company’s stance on gay rights, and specifically its lack of protections for its LGBT employees.
A few years ago, the company came under tremendous fire when it became known that its foundation had given millions to anti-LGBT organizations that included the Family Research Council and Exodus International. Then, the company president (now chief executive), Dan Cathy, added fuel to the fire when he acknowledged being “guilty as charged” when asked about being opposed to marriage equality. The story went viral, and a boycott of Chick-fil-A gained traction — as did a conservative backlash to support the company.
Today, as far as contributions to anti-gay groups are concerned, the company appears to have terminated most of its grants to these controversial groups. But even so, I’m not giving your husband a free pass to indulge himself. The more complete Chick-fil-A story on LGBT issues remains complicated at best. Cathy has said that his public anti-LGBT positions were a “mistake” as a business decision, because they made the company “a symbol in the marriage debate.” However, Cathy explained in a 2014 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his personal views on same-sex marriage hadn’t changed. “We are in the chicken business and will leave politics for others to debate,” the company said last week in an e-mail statement.
The issues extend beyond the company’s past contributions or the chief executive’s personal views. If I were your husband, I’d be concerned that LGBT employees have virtually no protections at the company.
Same sex couple Whitney Copeland and Skye Newkirk embrace outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant on August 3, 2012 in Dallas, Texas. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images) Deena Fidas, HRC’s director of workplace equality, said she hasn’t seen “meaningful changes to protect LGBT employees from discrimination, nor explicit protections for sexual orientation or gender identity.” In fact, Chick-fil-A received the lowest score possible, a zero, in HRC’s 2014 evaluation of the company.
Fidas pointed to other fast-food companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Chipotle, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC, all of which scored high in the organization’s rankings. Although someone’s personal beliefs are not my business, his manners — or “social conduct” — are. Companies need to be held accountable for their employee policies, which really are about how they treat their workers.
Alas, when your husband patronizes one of these restaurants, he is supporting the company. Would a donation to an LGBT rights group offset that, the way “carbon-offset programs” allow individuals and companies to pay a fee to make up for their carbon footprint? No. I’m imagining your husband explaining his position to your friends. No matter his diplomatic skills, they’ll understand him to be saying: “To eat Chick-fil-A’s chicken and waffle fries is more important to me than LGBT people having equal rights and protections.”
Still, I understand that we humans have our weaknesses. (I certainly do.) If his chicken craving proves insurmountable, encourage your husband to make a point of making a point. He can ask to speak to the manager or franchise owner; the reaction may surprise him. As Bob Witeck, who has three decades of service as one of Washington’s most trusted LGBT advocates, told me: “We’ve learned there are a number of these Chick-fil-A franchisees who are LGBT allies and friends and, in fact, take part in LGBT events or causes, too. All politics are local, we know, and most change is personal, real and direct.”
Unless he’s willing to talk the talk, there’s no waffling on this one — he can’t eat his chicken and have his principles, too.
Agree or disagree with my advice? Let me know in the comments section below.
E-mail questions to Civilities at stevenpetrow@earthlink.net (unfortunately, not all questions can be answered). You can reach him on Facebook at facebook.com/stevenpetrow and on Twitter @stevenpetrow. Join him for a chat online at washingtonpost.com on Feb. 2.
