Chick-fil-A Foundation says anti-LGBTQ giving is part of its ‘higher calling’

The head of Chick-fil-A’s tax-exempt foundation addressed the growing backlash against its continued giving to anti-LGBTQ organizations, telling Business Insider that it does not intend to change its ways. He dismissed concerns about the Chick-fil-A Foundation giving millions to organizations that discriminate as an unimportant “political or cultural war that’s being waged.”

ThinkProgress reported in March that the Chick-fil-A Foundation distributed $1.8 million in 2017 to non-profits with a history of anti-LGBTQ discrimination — contrary to repeated promises that it was winding down its giving to groups that discriminate. This included more than $1.6 million in contributions to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a religious group that works to spread an anti-LGBTQ message to college athletes, requiring a strict “sexual purity” policy for its employees that bars any “homosexual acts.”

In the weeks since the report, the company has faced a backlash. At least two airports have canceled plans to include a Chick-fil-A location in their vending agreements, and higher education students and faculty have pushed to remove Chick-fil-A from their campuses. The city council in San Jose, California, voted 11 to 0 last month to hang rainbow flags and blue-and-white transgender rights flags near the company’s location in the San Jose International Airport.

via Think Progress