August 21, 2015

Hey, Denver: Give Chick-fil-A a Break

Will Seberger/ZUMA

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I can’t recall ever agreeing with John Fund about anything, but he thinks this is ridiculous and I guess I do too:

Chick-fil-A’s reputation as an opponent of same-sex marriage has imperiled the fast-food chain’s potential return to Denver International Airport, with several City Council members this week passionately questioning a proposed concession agreement.

Councilman Paul Lopez called opposition to the chain at DIA “really, truly a moral issue on the city.”…Robin Kniech, the council’s first openly gay member, said she was most worried about a local franchise generating “corporate profits used to fund and fuel discrimination.” She was first to raise Chick-fil-A leaders’ politics during a Tuesday committee hearing.

….Several council members — including four on the six-member committee — raised questions related to Chick-fil-A’s religion-influenced operation, which includes keeping all franchises closed on Sundays.

Most focused on political firestorms sparked by remarks made by Chick-fil-A’s now-CEO Dan Cathy, reaching a peak in 2012 after court decisions favorable to same-sex marriage. The company also came under fire for donations made by charitable arms to groups opposing LGBT causes.

This stuff happened four years ago, and the company halted contributions to anti-gay groups a year later. Cathy presumably still doesn’t support gay marriage, but I really don’t think that should be a precondition for winning a bid with a government agency.

And when several council members go beyond that, raising questions about “Chick-fil-A’s religion-influenced operation,” all it does is confirm the worst hysteria from the right wing that merely being Christian is enough to arouse the hatred of the left. That’s just wildly inappropriate.

If the Denver City Council were giving a popular fast-food outlet a hard time because its CEO contributed to Planned Parenthood four years ago, we’d be outraged—and rightly so. I don’t blame conservatives for being equally outraged about this.

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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