Chick-fil-A still hasn’t learned its lesson

You would think that after seven years of an LGBTQ boycott over its donations to anti-LGBTQ organizations that Chick-fil-A would realize that donating to those organizations is just plain bad business.

But you would be wrong.

Newly released tax filings for 2017 of the company’s foundation show more than $1.8 million dollars donated to three groups with an anti-LGBTQ record, according to ThinkProgress.com.

Overall, Chick-fil-A donated almost $10 million to charities, mainly in Georgia where its headquarters is, and in the Southeast US. And if you look through the dozens of pages of donations, you would find many, if not most that you would agree with.

But buried among the long list are details of contributions to anti-LGBTQ organizations. The largest donations, totaling $1,653,416, went to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. That amounts to $16.6 percent of their giving.

Donations to two other charities with discrimination records were $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and $150,000 to the Salvation Army.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is a religious organization that seeks to spread an anti-LGBTQ message to college athletes and requires a strict “sexual purity” policy for its employees that bars any “homosexual acts,” reports ThinkProgress.

As part of its statement of faith, FCA says, “We believe God’s design for sexual intimacy is to be expressed only within the context of marriage. God instituted marriage between one man and one woman as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason, we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman.”

Seven years ago, Chick-fil-A’s record of donating to anti-LGBTQ organizations came to light. The fast food chain had donated to the SPLC-designated hate group Family Research Council and the conversion therapy group Exodus International, reports LGBTQNation.com.

“CEO Dan Cathy told a newspaper that the company was ‘guilty as charged’ of making anti-LGBTQ donations,” according to LGBTQNation, “and said that marriage equality proponents ‘have the audacity to define what marriage is about’ and were ‘inviting God’s judgment on our nation.’

“Chick-fil-a has spent years trying to downplay these donations, saying that they ‘will treat every person equally, regardless of sexual orientation’ and that the company’s charity arm ‘is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.’”

It does not appear that Chick-fil-A donated to any LGBTQ organizations, although ironically, they did donate $2,500 to the SPLC for “civil/community programming.”

Perhaps Chick-fil-A should do a little more research if they truly don’t want to donate to groups with a political agenda.

Copyright The Gayly – March 20, 2019 @ 4 p.m. CDT.