Chick-fil-A has long been a subject of the cultural Left’s ire. But now it seems the fast-food chain is growing tired of the target on its back.
The chain announced Monday that it will discontinue its donations to several Christian organizations that oppose same-sex marriage, including the Salvation Army, the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
“We made multi-year commitments to both organizations, and we fulfilled those obligations in 2018,” a representative for Chick-fil-A said in a statement, adding that the chain will now focus its charitable donations on “education, homelessness, and hunger.”
Chick-fil-A’s president and chief operating officer, Tim Tassopoulos, clarified that as the chain expands, its leadership wanted to be “clear about who we are.”
“There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message,” he said. “When there is a tension, we want to make sure we’re being clear. We think this is going to be helpful. It’s just the right thing to do: to be clear, caring, and supportive and do it in the community.”
This capitulation is shameful. Chick-fil-A has always been an explicitly Christian business — and not just because it closes on Sundays and includes Bible verses on its cups. Those details are just outward expressions of the faith this company’s founders hoped to share with their customers.
Chick-fil-A is a Christian business not because it encourages its employees to go to church, or because it plays instrumental hymns in its restaurants, or because it teaches others how to love to serve. Chick-fil-A is a Christian business because it was founded on Christian values, and its mission is to represent them to the rest of the world.
But don’t take my word for it. Take Chick-fil-A’s: “This company exists to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us,” reads its mission statement.
Now Chick-fil-A is distancing itself from those values by holding at arm’s length other Christian organizations that uphold them. That they did so for the sake of the cultural Left is disappointing. That they did so at the expense of their company’s purpose is disgraceful.
More than ever, we need companies willing to stand up for what’s right. Religious companies and individuals alike are regularly demonized for simply living out their faith, and now Chick-fil-A has decided to look the other way.
The worst part about this is that in doing so, Chick-fil-A has discredited the faith it claims to represent. By caving to the cultural Left, the company has furthered the narrative that Christianity is incompatible with inclusion and that serious Americans must choose one or the other.
The opposite is true: Christianity is a religion for all people of all walks of life, and any claim to the contrary is untrue and unjustified.
Christianity’s values are countercultural, to be sure. But despite the Left’s constant efforts to squash them, Chick-fil-A’s success was proof that these values might not be that unpopular after all. Indeed, many of Chick-fil-A’s customers supported the chain not in spite of its religious background, but because of it.
Now Chick-fil-A has sacrificed this support — for what, exactly? For revenue? Popularity? I doubt the company lacked either (I’m no fast-food expert, but I’ve never been to a Chick-fil-A that wasn’t teetering on the brink of overcapacity), and at least then it had its integrity.
Besides, do we really think the cultural Left, the movement that’s incapable of forgiving someone for bad tweets sent in youthful ignorance, is going to forget Chick-fil-A’s past and become its biggest fans?
Some conservatives have already begun to call for a boycott of Chick-fil-A. I couldn’t give up Chick-fil-A sauce even if I tried. But I do hope the company’s leadership can offer more clarity on its decision in the days ahead. If they remain committed to this new direction toward cultural acceptance and away from religion, I won’t be the only one asking questions.
