While its food may be wildly popular, it seems Chick-Fil-A’s social stances are not earning universal applause.
San Antonio has just banned the Georgia-based fast-food chain from its airport. The move comes on the heels of a vote by the city’s district council to approve a new concession agreement for the airport.
While the vote was designed to bring in more locally run food businesses, it specifically bans the chicken sandwich chain, according to Fortune.
The ban is tied to Chick-Fil-A’s donation of money to groups that have been associated with LGBTQ discrimination.
“With this decision, the City Council reaffirmed the work our city has done to become a champion of equality and inclusion,” said City Councilman Roberto Treviño. “San Antonio is a city full of compassion, and we do not have room in our public facilities for a business with a legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior.”
The conservative leanings of Chick-Fil-A executives have been the subject of much news coverage over the years.
The company’s history includes CEO Dan Cathy characterizing the U.S. as “inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and we say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”
According to Vox, the company has continued donating to anti-LGBTQ charities through its foundation despite stating in 2012 that it would leave “the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government.”
A report from ThinkProgress found that as recently as 2017 the Chick-fil-A Foundation donated more than $1.8 million to three groups that have a history of LGBTQ discrimination.
When analyzing the foundation’s tax filings, ThinkProgress discovered that Chick-fil-A’s charitable arm gave $1,653,416 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a religious organization that requires its employees to refrain from “homosexual acts”; $150,000 to the Salvation Army, which has been accused of anti-LGBTQ discrimination and advocacy for years and whose media relations director once claimed gay people “deserve death”; and $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, a Christian residential home that teaches young boys that same-sex marriage is a “rage against Jesus Christ and His values,” Vox reported.
For its part, Chick-Fil-A described San Antonio’s decision as “disappointing” in a statement and indicated that it will reach out to the council to discuss the ban.
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