Did Chick-fil-A lie to Chicago alderman?

C

If Chick-fil-A thought this was going away, it's not. From CNN:

Chick-fil-A, in a statement Thursday, affirmed the workplace protections. Friday, however, company President Dan Cathy denied the company has ceased making donations to groups that oppose gay marriage and said Chick-fil-A "made no such concessions."

"There continues to be erroneous implications in the media that Chick-fil-A changed our practices and priorities in order to obtain permission for a new restaurant in Chicago," Cathy said in a statement to Mike Huckabee, the former Republican presidential candidate who now runs a conservative website. "That is incorrect."

Moreno said Sunday that Cathy's statement "at the least, muddied the progress we had made with Chick-fil-A and, at the worst, contradicted the documents and promises Chick-fil-A made to me and the community earlier this month."

Read the rest of this post...

Maine firefighters do ad for marriage equality

Tomorrow Mainers United will launch a new ad for the upcoming vote on marriage.  The ad features four firefighters - three who are straight and one who is gay.  Watch below:



It's the first ad of the cycle that has prominently featured someone who would benefit from marriage equality.  Previous ads that feature families of gay people discussing why marriage is about fairness are important for voters on the fence (see the brilliant Harlan ad), but I think these messengers are important in reaching the people who still can't imagine that they'd have a gay relative.  Plus, let's be honest, everyone trusts and respects a firefighter. Read the rest of this post...

Gay Web pioneer dies

He founded a controversial (in some circles) cruising site in the mid 1990s, and in many ways was the pioneer in that area. Read the rest of this post...

Chick-fil-A stills hates you

Who didn't see that one coming.

Chick-fil-A has now withdrawn any suggestion that it wants to make nice with the gay. The CEO issued a statement suggesting that Chick-fil-A will continue funding officially-designated hate groups and anti-gay bigots, and that nothing, nothing, nothing has changed.

Seems clear to me that the organization is in turmoil.  Or else they wouldn't have let the Chicago alderman say publicly that he'd received a letter from Chick-fil-a assuring him that they'd changed.

The religious right must have beaten the bejeesus out of Chick-fil-A privately, and the organization bizarrely wasn't expecting it (how could they not expect it?), and now has caved again in the other direction.

Chick-fil-A is in for a rude awakening.  That southern bigot thing might work in Mississippi and Alabama, but good luck with running a restaurant that moonlights as a far-right gay-hating activist church in California.

Or Boston.

Or Chicago.

Salt Lake, on the other hand... (Oh that's right, Southern Baptists probably think the Mormons are going to hell too). Read the rest of this post...

Intel drops Boy Scouts for discriminating against gays

Wow.

The Boy Scouts of America has lost its largest corporate donor, Intel, which announced today that it will stop giving to the group unless it vows to stop discriminating against gay people.

The Intel Foundation was identified in an investigation by The American Independent, which was also posted by The Advocate, as having given about $700,000 in 2010 to the Boy Scouts. It was by far the largest share of corporate giving, with the Verizon Foundation donating more than $300,000 several big banks reaching the $100,000 range.

Read the rest of this post...

Just a reminder that "all Americans" can't serve their country

I'd written about this before. It's a huge deal that the military's gay ban has been lifted. But folks should refrain from saying that now "all Americans" can serve openly. Trans Americans cannot.

I think it's going to be a heavy lift, lifting the ban on trans service members any time soon. Remember, gay service members were coming out for decades, in an effort to change public attitudes. You don't hear that often about trans members coming out. We're going to need more of that. Then again, society's views on all these issues are changing quickly, so that will help.

And the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell can only help the cause of trans service members, as we're already seeing that the critics of DADT repeal, with all of their dire predictions, were wrong. Read the rest of this post...

Is calling something "gay" more sexist than homophobic

An interesting point that I don't entirely agree with.

Finally, this case brings up intersections of gender, sexuality, and culture. Maricon is, after all, a Spanish word, used by Latinos in a culturally specific way. It’s easy for Anglo commentators like me to misconstrue it or take it out of context, or assume it means the same thing as “faggot” means in English. It doesn’t—and that alone tells us a lot about how sexuality and gender are construed in different communities.

At heart, maricon is a term used by two macho cultures, each of which is not so much homophobic as sexist. Really, what was I doing on the sports field back in 1986? I wasn’t homosexual—I was throwing the ball “like a girl”; I was a “pussy,” a sissy, an effeminate man. Maybe maricon’s real target isn’t gays, but women.

Sure it's sexist. And it's homophobic too. The point is to suggest that the guy is like a girl, and being a girl is bad. And that's sexist. But what word do they use to suggest that the guy is like a girl? Gay. Or f-g. Or maricon.

So it's still homophobic in that it's intended to knock a straight man by comparing him to a woman, and who else is like a "bad" woman? Gay men. Read the rest of this post...

Chick-fil-A releases new statement that says absolutely nothing

At this point, it's pretty clear that Chick-fil-A's public relations people are either really bad at their jobs, or they've been completely cut of the loop and someone who knows nothing about PR or crisis management, like the top brass of the company, is issuing these bizarre say-nothing press releases.

Here's Chick-fil-A's latest today, in response to the news that they seem to be helping fundraiser for an anti-gay marriage organization.

Chick-fil-A doesn't understand basic HMTL, so I can't copy and paste their newest statement - I'm going to attach a jpg instead (seriously, who does their PR - my mother?):

You'll note that Chick-fil-A is still refusing to include sexual orientation or gender identity in their non-discrimination policy.  Oh they mention them, but they aren't putting them in any official policy.  Why? Read the rest of this post...

Chick-fil-A helping fundraise for anti-gay marriage group

Chick-fil-A is backing a fundraiser this week for a group that Media Matters has labeled anti-gay.

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.

More from Media Matters on the Marriage and Family Foundation:

Chick-Fil-A Vice President Launched Marriage And Family Legacy Fund. Donald "Bubba" Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s senior vice president, helped launched the Marriage and Family Legacy Fund (MFLF), which “pool[s] funds for a national marriage media campaign and provide start-up grants for local initiatives to promote stable, lasting marriages.” [Philanthropy Roundtable, October 2007]

MFLF Is A Project Of The Anti-Gay Marriage CoMission. The MFLF was created to be the “implementation and funding arm” for the Marriage CoMission, a coalition of groups formed in response to the “downward spiral of marriage and the traditional family in America.” [MFLF Executive Summary, accessed 6/27/12, Marriage CoMission, accessed 6/27/12]

Marriage CoMission Is Supported By Prominent Anti-Gay Activists. Since its inception, the CoMission has been supported by anti-gay activists such as Exodus International's Alan Chambers and Citizens for Community Values' Barry Sheets. [Marriage CoMission, accessed 10/28/11]

I was already suspicious about Chick-fil-A's claim to have found Jesus, so to speak. It seems my suspicions may have been accurate.
Read the rest of this post...