The Texas attorney general announced he will open an investigation into whether San Antonio’s mayor and city council violated state law by excluding Chick-fil-A from the city’s airport.
“The Constitution’s protection of religious liberty is somehow even better than Chick-fil-A’s chicken. Unfortunately, I have serious concerns that both are under assault at the San Antonio airport,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said.
The city council voted 6-4 to block Chick-fil-A from opening a store at the San Antonio International Airport after details on the company’s political and charitable donations to anti-LGBT groups came to light.
Besides his letter to the council warning them of a state-level investigation, Paxton also sent a three-page letter to Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, asking that “the Department of Transportation open an investigation into San Antonio’s potential breach of federal law and your agency’s regulations prohibiting religious discrimination by federal grant recipients.”
Paxton alleged that the city council excluded the chain based on the religious beliefs of its leadership, which merits a federal-level probe as well.
“Federal policy is clearly intended to prevent grant recipients from discriminating on the basis of sincerely-held religious beliefs,” Paxton said.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, weighed in on the controversy, too.
“San Antonio City Council voted to ban Chick-fil-A from the airport because the company gave to…the Fellowship of Christian Athletes & the Salvation Army?!? That’s ridiculous. And not Texas,” Cruz tweeted.
The company also released a statement, calling the decision by San Antonio’s City Council “disappointing” and saying that they “would have liked to have had a dialogue with the city council before this decision was made.”
“We plan to reach out to the city council to gain a better understanding of this decision,” the statement read.
