We are comforted by Dan Cathy’s assurance [given to to Franklin Graham] that Chick-fil-A hasn’t changed and isn’t going to change. But what then was intended by the corporate announcement last week? It told readers that a change in policy had occurred. What was it really? JDFI [James Dobson Family Institute] and conservative Christians across the nation are awaiting further clarification.
—Dr. James Dobson, on November 25, 2019, in a public statement about Chick-fil-A’s new charitable giving policy—
Key point: Quite often, actions make clearer statements than words.
Last time, we began examining 1) the decision of Chick-fil-A’s leaders to change the company’s charitable giving policies, as well as 2) a number of factors that lead up to the decision. CFA’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Tassopoulos, made the announcement in an interview that was the focus of a November 18, 2019 article in Bisnow. Tassopoulos said,
There’s no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need 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.
The article goes on to explain,
Starting next year, the Chick-fil-A Foundation plans to give $9M to organizations like Junior Achievement USA to support education, Covenant House International to fight homelessness and community food banks for its hunger initiative in each city where the chain operates. The company intends to dedicate $25K to a local food bank each time it opens a new location.
According to Tassopoulos, “This provides more focus and more clarity….We think [education, hunger and homelessness] are critical issues in communities where we do business in the U.S.”
Previously, Chick-fil-A (CFA) had made contributions to groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Salvation Army, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home. Because these ministries seek to uphold a biblical view of sexuality, CFA has been subject to relentless criticism from gay rights activists. Keep in mind that these ministries don’t focus primarily on helping people overcome homosexuality or unwanted same-sex attraction. That didn’t matter. In 2012, CFA president Dan Cathy had spoken publicly in support support of marriage as being between one man and one woman. Even though Americans—even business executives—are supposed to have a right to their own beliefs and a right to express them openly, the idea that marriage is what it has been for millennia is a notion gay activists will not tolerate.
You see, the “tolerance” they practice dictates that if you believe in man-woman marriage, then you must pay dearly for that belief, especially if you’re a person of influence. They will go after you as a hater with the means to ruin your reputation. They’ve done this to many others and, unfortunately, have had a great deal and success. The very people who claim to have been bullied so horribly are now, undeniably, expert bullies themselves. They cannot be appeased!
Quite Clear
When he made the announcement about his company’s new giving policy, Mr. Tassopoulos spoke of clarity. Did CFA’s decision, and the announcement associated with it, really provide clarity? It appears that the clear message that a large number of Christians heard wasn’t the same one the company intended to convey. Joe Dallas, a former homosexual who now ministers to people dealing with unwanted same-sex attraction, said this:
If glorifying God is your mission [as CFA’s corporate purpose statement1 affirms], and you want to be clear about who you are, then withdrawing your support from others who glorify God, simply because they uphold the standards of the God both you and they glorify, seems inconsistent and (forgive me) a little chicken.
If glorifying God is your mission, and you want to be clear about who you are, then withdrawing your support from others who glorify God, simply because they uphold the standards of the God both you and they glorify, seems inconsistent and (forgive me) a little chicken.
—Joe Dallas—
For Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council (FRC), CFA’s decision to back away from giving to faith-based charities was more than disappointing. It was personal. Fourteen days after CFA Appreciation Day, a would-be assassin named Floyd Corkins walked into FRC Headquarters with a gun and with a backpack filled with Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Perkins relates what happened.
He’d loaded three magazines. In his backpack was a stash of chicken sandwiches that he planned to smear in the faces of staffers he hoped to kill. “They endorse Chick-fil-A,” he said. It would be a “statement against the people who work there.”
Thanks to Leo [Johnson, an FRC employee who stopped Corkins but was shot in the arm], it was a statement he never got to make.
Johnson said later that when he was apprehending Corkins, he had the opportunity to take his life but did not. Johnson said that “it was God who spoke to me and told me to not take his life, to spare his life. And, you know, I’ve never regretted that decision.” Corkins was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his actions. He’d seen that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had listed FRC as a hate group on its list of hate groups because it was “anti-gay.” If the SPLC really is looking for hate groups, it really ought to look in the mirror. Thankfully, Mr. Corkins was unsuccessful in carrying out his plans to murder dozens of FRC personnel and allies.
Perkins continues, explaining why CFA’s changes in charitable giving hurt so much.
In the days and years after that, we never talked publicly about Chick-fil-A’s response to the shooting. Mainly because there wasn’t one. Through all of the press conferences, the trial, and sentencing, I never once picked up the phone or opened my email to a message from someone at headquarters. Not even to ask about Leo. Obviously, Chick-fil-A wanted then what they want publicly now: as much distance from our movement as possible.
Perkins goes on to write about how, despite the vicious attacks against it, Chick-fil-A had “thrived,” and how it was clear that a big reason for company’s growth was the support of Christians who loved the fact its leadership had taken a stand for what was right. “Millions of families drove out of their way to stop at Chick-fil-A” says Perkins, “not because the chicken was that good, but because their conviction was.”
Then Perkins essentially says, You show me people who are disappointed and angry with CFA, and I’ll show you the very people the company betrayed. And CFA will gain nothing! Its overture of tolerance won’t be welcomed by militant gay rights activists—not at all. When members of homosexual rights groups look at people they’ve vilified and see that they’re giving in some, they demand that they give in more. And they don’t stop until they’ve brought those people to their knees in complete surrender. It’s a lesson Chick-fil-A apparently doesn’t yet get.
Tony Perkins, who’s been fighting for the family for decades, knows what he’s talking about. I’m sure he wasn’t surprised (even if Dan Cathy might have been) at the criticism CFA received from homosexual rights advocates after making its announcement.
So, it’s evident that, as they looked to the future and saw the cultural resistance to the company’s efforts to expand, CFA executives made what some would call a “strategic business decision.” Note that in the announcement he made, Tim Tassopoulos said, “There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message” (emphasis added). That tells you a great deal about what was behind the decision, and this from the Bisnow article that broke the story confirms it: “[A]fter years of ‘taking it on the chin,’…a Chick-fil-A executive…[said], the latest round of headlines was impossible to ignore. This time, it [—all the negative press—] was impeding the company’s growth.”
Infiltrated!
It hasn’t been only about growth, however. Evidence continues to mount that CFA has been infiltrated by the left (also go here and here). Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield writes that anyone “paying attention to Chick-fil-A’s corporate structure” wouldn’t have been surprised at its announcement.
The donations were coming out of the Chick-fil-A Foundation. The Executive Director of the CFA Foundation is Rodney D. Bullard, a former White House fellow and Assistant US Attorney. Some may have mistaken him for a conservative because he was a fellow in the Bush Administration, but he was an Obama donor, and, more recently, had donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign while at Chick-fil-A.
Like many corporations, Chick-fil-A branded its charitable giving as a form of social responsibility. Bullard became its Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility.2 Unlike charity, corporate social responsibility is a leftist endeavor to transform corporations into the political arms of radical causes. Like other formerly conservative corporations, Chick-fil-A had made the fundamental error of adopting the language and the infrastructure of its leftist peers. And that made what happened entirely inevitable.
Significantly, Covenant House, one of the organizations that now will benefit from CFA’s charitable giving decision, has hosted a drag queen story hour in New York and is “affirming” of LGBT youth. And remarkably, in 2017, the CFA Foundation donated $2,500 to the Southern Poverty Law Center! Even though CFA has offered an explanation for the donation, the fact that it was made in the first place points to leftist influences within the company.
Franklin Graham Defends Dan Cathy
Franklin Graham is the son of the legendary evangelist Billy Graham and an evangelist in his own right. Graham is a worldview Christian, one who allows his faith to guide every area of his life and who champions biblical values in the public square. In the aftermath of the company’s announcement and the criticism that came from conservative Christians, Graham spoke directly with Dan Cathy. Afterward, he took to Facebook to defend him. Graham said in part,
Has Chick-fil-A caved? Some are saying they’ve rolled over, that they’ve conceded to the LGBTQ protests because they released a statement about their charitable giving. They announced that in 2020 they’re giving to fight hunger and homelessness and support education. What’s wrong with that?
I picked up the phone and called Dan Cathy. Dan was very clear that they have not bowed down to anyone’s demands, including the LGBTQ community. They will continue to support whoever they want to support. They haven’t changed who they are or what they believe. Chick-fil-A remains committed to Christian values. Dan Cathy assured me that this isn’t going to change. I hope all those who jumped to the wrong conclusion about them read this.
Questions Remain
Certainly for Christians, there is nothing wrong with donating money “to fight hunger and homelessness and support education,” that is, if these efforts are not linked to the promotion of values contrary to biblical teachings. Legitimate concerns are being raised about that issue, but it isn’t the only issue involved. Frustrations also are being expressed about why CFA abandoned the charitable organizations they supported previously in the first place.
Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel Action is a worldview Christian too, just as Franklin Graham is. Staver responded to Graham with an open letter. In it, he cited evidence that Covenant House is pro-LGBT (as I also have done in this article). He also emphasized evidence that CFA abandoned the faith-based charities it previously had funded because those charities had been accused by gay rights activists of being anti-LGBT:
Chick-fil-A dumps the Salvation Army because it wants to expand into new markets and now shuns originations [sic] the LGBT activists falsely call ‘anti-LGBT,’ and then turns 180 degrees to announce that it will now fund Covenant House, a radical LGBTQ activist organization that celebrates homosexuality, transgenderism, and the entire LGBTQ agenda.…To save its own corporate skin, Chick-fil-A has thrown good, biblical, organizations under the bus and legitimized the false narrative of the LGBT activists.
For its part, the Salvation Army issued this statement.
We’re saddened to learn that a corporate partner has felt it necessary to divert funding to other hunger, education and homelessness organizations — areas in which The Salvation Army, as the largest social services provider in the world, is already fully committed. We serve more than 23 million individuals a year, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, we believe we are the largest provider of poverty relief to the LGBTQ+ population. When misinformation is perpetuated without fact, our ability to serve those in need, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or any other factor, is at risk. We urge the public to seek the truth before rushing to ill-informed judgment and greatly appreciate those partners and donors who ensure that anyone who needs our help feels safe and comfortable to come through our doors.
Mathew Staver’s letter raised concerns about CFA’s announcement that Franklin Graham’s defense of CFA did not address. Others also chimed in. While Dr. James Dobson was grateful for the assurances Dan Cathy had given to Graham, he wondered aloud what the policy change really did mean if the company really was staying true to its founding values. (See a portion of Dr. Dobson’s statement at the top of this article.) Joe Dallas was even more specific. In a blogpost dated November 19, 2019 (an article we cited last time), Dallas wrote,
[I]t strains all credulity to suggest that a desire to distance themselves from that stand [upholding biblical standard of sexuality while being branded “anti-LGBT”] wasn’t a motivator. In fact, according to yesterday’s interview with Bisnow, Chick-fil-A has said, regarding organizations it will support in the future, “none of the organizations have anti-LGBT positions.”
Dallas concluded a second blogpost about CFA two days later by tossing a penetrating question to CFA executives. He asked,
“If a faith based organization holds and states the viewpoint that homosexuality, like many other behaviors, falls short of God’s will, would that make you unwilling to financially support that organization?”
Simple question. A brief “yes” or “no” will suffice.
So, gentlemen? You have the mic.
If a faith based organization holds and states the viewpoint that homosexuality, like many other behaviors, falls short of God’s will, would that make you unwilling to financially support that organization?
—Joe Dallas, to Chick-fil-A executives—
Did Chick-fil-A respond? Yes, it did, but as far as I know, not directly to Joe Dallas. Instead, Dan Cathy replied to a letter from another pro-family leader. We’ll discuss that exchange next time, as well as numerous lessons for conservative Christians arising arising from the entire affair.
You won’t want to miss the final installment in our series!
Part 3 is available here.
Copyright © 2020 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
top image credit: Chick-fil-A trucks
image credit: Chick-fil-A Headquarters
image credit: Franklin Graham
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Notes:
1Chick-fil-A’s corporate purpose statement is as follows: “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.”
2Go here to read information from the Chick-fil-A Foundations’s website about Rodney D. Bullard.
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