ATLANTA — In the past, Chick-Fil-A has taken a steadfast and highly controversial stance against the LGBT community, including public comments made in 2012 by chief operating officer Dan T. Cathy opposing same sex marriage.
Additionally, Chick-Fil-A’s WinShape Foundation had donated millions of dollars to a variety of organizations viewed as being oppositional to LGBT rights, which led to protests and boycotts across the nation. Many business partners even severed ties with the fast food chain over the incidents, prompting Chick-Fil-A to release a public statement announcing that they would leave the same-sex marriage debate to the government and political arena. In March of 2014, tax filings also showed that the fast food corporation had ceased funding all but one organization that they had come under scrutiny for supporting.
However, in a surprising and likely soon-to-be just as controversial move, Chick-Fil-A is releasing Rainbow Chicken Nuggets to show their support of the LGBT community.
“We fully stand by our Christian values, the values of my late father Truett,” said Dan T. Cathy, “But we know that in order to remove the speck from your brother’s eye, you must first remove the plank from your own. It is not our place to tell other people how to live their lives, and furthermore, we hope our Rainbow Nuggets can serve as an apology and a showing of repentance for our hypocrisy. Nobody’s perfect, including us.”
Reactions throughout the LGBT community have been understandably mixed. Many perceive the announcement as proof of a genuine change of heart, while others view the Rainbow Chicken Nugget debut is simply a hollow gesture or a cheap marketing ploy.
Time will tell if Chick-Fil-A is merely “marketing the rainbow,” a sign of changing times, or if the decision to publicly reverse their previous stance against the LGBT community reflects a newfound perspective throughout the highest levels of the company.
