Chick-fil-A says its donations had been ‘mischaracterised for many months’

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a white background.

Just more than 24 hours after news broke that Chick-fil-A had pledged to stop funding anti-equal marriage groups, they have released a statement saying their donations had been “mischaracterised”, and that they had been trying to get out of the political debate for months.

The Los Angeles Times reported that in a statement, the company said that their “sincere intent has been to remain out of this political and social debate,” but that they had been repeatedly brought back into it.

The statement said: “A part of our corporate commitment is to be responsible stewards of all that God has entrusted to us… Our intent is not to support political or social agendas.”

“As we have stated, the Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators.”

The Civil Rights Agenda yesterday confirmed, in a press release, that Alderman Moreno, had finished negotiations with Chick-fil-A, and that the company had agreed to stop funding charities with a political agenda, including those opposed to equal marriage.

A statement from the WinShape foundation, the charitable branch of Chick-fil-A wrote to Alderman Moreno saying:

“The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organisations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organisations with political agendas.”

Back in July, Dan Cathy, COO of Chick-Fil-A said that the company were against equal marriage rights for gay people. He told the Baptist Press that the company was “guilty as charged”, when asked about its perceived opposition to equal marriage.

Joe Moreno, an alderman who represents Chicago’s Logan Square neighbourhood, had previously said he would use his aldermanic privilege to block the restaurant’s permit. This meant city council members would have to defer to aldermen on local matters.

 

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