Chick-fil-A, caught this week sucking on the teet of an anti-gay marriage group when they were supposed to be backing away from such organizations, broke its silence on Thursday. Their take? They won’t back down from anti-gay groups.
The Atlanta-based company refused to respond publicly this week when a Chicago politician said Chick-fil-A promised him that it would end its financial support of groups that opposed gay marriage. Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno publicly celebrated and the Illinois-based Civil Rights Agenda publicly cheered the company on Tuesday.
But on the same day, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, who ignited a national firestorm with his anti-gay comments in July, tweeted a photo from the start of the 200-mile Ride for the Family, an annual event for straight married couples organized by the WinShape Foundation. That’s the Chick-fil-A operated marriage retreat in north Georgia that bans gay couples and funnels money to groups that actively oppose same-sex marriage.
The Ride for the Family, in turn, raises funds for the Atlanta-based Marriage & Family Foundation, which lists its address as the same Buffington Road locale that’s also home to Chick-fil-A’s corporate offices in College Park, which is south of Atlanta. And that foundation, according to the Advocate, is among the top anti-gay recipients of Chick-fil-A cash.
The Marriage and Family Foundation was not only included in the investigation by Equality Matters of the fast-food chain’s questionable giving history, it was identified as the top antigay recipient in 2010. WinShape had given more than $1 million to the group in 2010 alone.
The Marriage and Family Foundation was created as the “implementation and funding arm” for something called the Marriage CoMission, which Equality Matters says is host to an annual conference about the supposed decline of marriage. The conference has been attended by the founders of the National Organization for Marriage and Exodus International, which had once focused on changing people from gay to straight. The Cathy-family group originally was intended to contribute to multi-million dollar public awareness campaigns about its values.
The conflicting messages – Chick-fil-A seemingly pulling back on its financial donations to anti-gay marriage groups while its president joins them in a motorcycle ride – prompted the Human Rights Campaign to blast the company. It also pushed Chick-fil-A to finally respond publicly by posting a brief statement to their website.
Their message was clear: We won’t back down from supporting programs that “strengthen families and enrich marriages.”
More @ Project Atlanta
No comments:
Post a Comment