Ben Shapiro spoke out last night during an appearance on Fox News, warning that Chick-fil-A’s move to no longer donate to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, due to pressure from LGBT activists is a harbinger of things to come.
“They’re going to lose a lot of supporters on the right who feel like they surrendered to nasty, censorious cancel culture,” Shapiro said, according to TheBlaze. “The fact that Chick-fil-A decided to bow down before the lords of political correctness and then cut Christian charities out because those Christian charities happen not to support same-sex marriage militantly is pretty astonishing… and it’s a horrible sign for our culture.”
Many are indeed disappointed that Chick-fil-A announced, on the very same day the Salvation Army’s bell ringers kicked off the season, that they would no longer be donating to the Salvation Army and also the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Perhaps more stunning was the lack of cover Chick-fil-A provided for their former partners. Instead of saying something positive, they chose to say nothing. This opened the door for the media to create a narrative and run with it, and that’s exactly what they did. Now, they were free to label the Salvation Army and FCA as “anti-LGBT.” The Salvation Army was not happy with the slight, and publicly made their frustration known.
Some have lept to Chick-fil-A’s defense, arguing this was merely a shift in donation strategy and had nothing to do with outside pressure from activists. This explanation loses plausibility, however, when considering comments from Chick-fil-A President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Tassopoulos in business publisher Bisnow:
The new giving structure moves away from the multiyear commitments Chick-fil-A had with the Salvation Army and the FCA and focuses on annual grants, which Tassopoulos said will be reviewed and assessed each year. Future partners could include faith-based and non-faith-based charities, but the company said none of the organizations have anti-LGBT positions.
What does Chick-fil-A mean by “anti” LGBT positions? Their statements are troublingly vague. This should be a concern for all Christians, because the FCA was labeled “anti-LGBT” for, well, holding standard Christian views.
CNN, for example, to justify labeling FCA “anti-LGBT” they point to the FCA employee handbook, which says “neither heterosexual sex outside of marriage nor any homosexual act constitute an alternative lifestyle acceptable to God.” CNN also notes that on the FCA website, it says “marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman.”
In case Chick-fil-A’s memory is rusty, they grew such a loyal fan base by espousing and standing firmly by very similar views. In 2012, Dan Cathy said this about marriage:
“But as an organization, we can operate on biblical principles. So that is what we claim to be. [We are] based on biblical principles, asking God and pleading with God to give us wisdom on decisions we make about people and the programs and partnerships we have. And He has blessed us,” he said. “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”
The statements coming this week from CFA brass aren’t nearly as inspiring as it pertains to the Christian walk.
Again, from Bisnow:
But after years of “taking it on the chin,” as a Chick-fil-A executive told Bisnow, the latest round of headlines was impossible to ignore. This time, it was impeding the company’s growth. “There’s no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are. There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message.”
To summarize, in order to increase the bottom line, Chick-fil-A has decided to make clear they will no longer donate to “anti-LGBT” organizations, which translated from activist hyperbole to English simply means organizations that hold standard Christian views.
This is why many Christians who valued and appreciated Chick-fil-A’s principled, unwavering stand for Godly morals are upset today. The company that once stood for principles above profits has seemingly flipped that around. Now, profits appear to be the main driver of decision making rather than putting faith and trust in God to “bless” the company for sticking to His values.
And, as Shapiro points out, if their goal is to now please the social media mob first, those attempts will be futile:
“The left will never be satisfied. Once you give an inch to the left with regard to your fundamental principles, the left will never stop. If Chick-fil-A believes that they bought off the left through all of this and that the left is suddenly going to start switching their dollars over from whatever vegan restaurants they are patronizing — they’ve got another thing coming.”
Some have tried to brush this off as nothing to be concerned about.
However, if the mighty Chick-fil-A feels the need to cater to radical activists, what does that mean for the cake shop type small business owners out there. How can they possibly hope to stand up to the pressure of being labeled a “hate” business when the third-largest food chain in America crumbles under the weight of LGBT bullying and intimidation?
Let’s pray that this is a blip on the radar for Chick-fil-A, and they resume basing their decisions on Biblical principles and then relying on God to bless those decisions because of it.