Amazing: Gays boycott Pride event in NH due to Chick-Fil-A participation?

One of the first rules of being in a hole is to stop dig­ging. Appar­ently the folks at GetE­QUAL MA & Join the Impact MA haven’t fig­ured this out yet. They have decided to pull out of the Pride NH event because…wait for it. The Nashua Chick-​Fil-​A Fran­chise is sup­port­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in it:

From a press release I received today

Despite the Nashua franchisee’s dec­la­ra­tion of being wel­com­ing to the gay com­mu­nity, his restau­rant — like all Chick-​fil-​A restau­rants — gives 15% gross + 50% net prof­its back to the Atlanta-​based par­ent com­pany, from which Chick-​fil-​A is free to donate to whomever they want. The $50 booth fee for NH Pride is a pal­try price for the local Chick-​fil-​A to pay in order to mar­ket a prod­uct, in the hopes of gain­ing new fans who will pro­duce more prof­its — prof­its which will end up sup­port­ing anti-​gay groups work­ing against the inter­ests of the very peo­ple and their loved ones NH Pride is cel­e­brat­ing. The Chick-​fil-​A story for the LGBTQ com­mu­nity has always been one about a com­pany specif­i­cally sup­port­ing efforts that harm our com­mu­nity, not about a pri­vate citizen’s per­sonal opinions.

In other words the Nashua Chick-​Fil-​A Franchise’s choice to par­tic­i­pate in the event and the national atten­tion that coun­ter­point isn’t good enough, that Chick-​Fil-​A fran­chise con­t­a­m­i­nates the entire event so they will not participate.

Wow way to go guys. Con­sid­er­ing the rel­a­tive sizes of the Fri­day Protest and Tues­day Star­bucks appre­ci­a­tion day the to the Chick-​Fil-​A day you would think any­thing that would split the com­mu­nity that sup­ports Chick-​Fil-​A would be a net pos­i­tive for your side.

Instead the mes­sage is sent, there is a split in the LGBT com­mu­nity and the Nashua Fran­chise owner (and all oth­ers who might con­sider sup­port­ing your posi­tion) will get no reward for their efforts.

That will get them run­ning to your side of the aisle. Good plan!

Then again maybe it’s only an excuse, maybe they are afraid I will cover the event and this is just an accept­able way to dis­guise the embar­rass­ment and shame of Fedo­ra­pho­bia!

Hey that makes as much sense as this does.
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The DaTechGuy’s fund raiser goes on, help me get that used Mer­cury and find a cure for fedoraphobia

For details click here for the progress check the ther­mome­ter to the right and to kick in hit DaTipJar”.

Here is the full press release:

GETE­QUAL MA & JOIN THE IMPACT MA WITH­DRAW PAR­TIC­I­PA­TION IN NH PRIDE EVENT

BOSTON, MA — GetE­QUAL Mass­a­chu­setts and Join the Impact Mass­a­chu­setts posted a state­ment to our web­sites before par­tic­i­pat­ing in the August 3^rd nation­wide Chick-​fil-​A action because we wanted to shift the pub­lic debate away from the mis­ap­pro­pri­ated free speech argu­ment to the real issue of Chick-fil-A’s “dis­crim­i­na­tion dona­tions” and the strug­gle for LGBT equal­ity. The state­ment fol­lowed NH Pride’s sub­se­quent world­wide mes­sag­ing of Chick-​fil-​A as a spon­sor of their upcom­ing Pride Event, an action we found trou­bling con­sid­er­ing Chick-fil-A’s long his­tory of anti-​gay dis­crim­i­na­tion. We were look­ing for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing in NH Pride as indi­vid­u­als of a com­mu­nity that stretches beyond state bor­ders. Unfor­tu­nately, our ‘Pinkwash­ing of Chick-​fil-​A” blog post was met with charges of bul­ly­ing. NH Pride’s con­tin­ued sup­port of their deci­sion to pro­mote the Chick-​fil-​A name has forced us to recon­sider our par­tic­i­pa­tion in their Pride Event, an event we were happy to see return to New Hamp­shire and one we con­tinue to sup­port, but have deter­mined best to with­draw from.

Chick-​fil-​A makes no bones about being opposed to mar­riage equal­ity, nor about the mil­lions of dol­lars they’ve given to defend “bib­li­cal mar­riage” and the “tra­di­tional fam­ily.” This is a curi­ous posi­tion for a cor­po­ra­tion, or an indi­vid­ual store beholden to that cor­po­ra­tion, to sup­port con­sid­er­ing the peren­nial bat­tle in New Hamp­shire to retain their equal mar­riage law. Removed from much of the media cov­er­age is the fact that Chick-​fil-​A doesn’t restrict their anti-​gay dis­crim­i­na­tion dona­tions to the mar­riage fight but they also give money to ex-​gay con­ver­sion ther­apy min­istries and other anti-​gay groups — includ­ing one orga­ni­za­tion iden­ti­fied by the South­ern Povery Law Cen­ter as a “hate group” — engaged in var­i­ous cam­paigns to pro­hibit and take away our equal rights like NH’s unan­i­mous defeat of a much-​lobbied-​against trans­gen­der rights bill.

Despite the Nashua franchisee’s dec­la­ra­tion of being wel­com­ing to the gay com­mu­nity, his restau­rant — like all Chick-​fil-​A restau­rants — gives 15% gross + 50% net prof­its back to the Atlanta-​based par­ent com­pany, from which Chick-​fil-​A is free to donate to whomever they want. The $50 booth fee for NH Pride is a pal­try price for the local Chick-​fil-​A to pay in order to mar­ket a prod­uct, in the hopes of gain­ing new fans who will pro­duce more prof­its — prof­its which will end up sup­port­ing anti-​gay groups work­ing against the inter­ests of the very peo­ple and their loved ones NH Pride is cel­e­brat­ing. The Chick-​fil-​A story for the LGBTQ com­mu­nity has always been one about a com­pany specif­i­cally sup­port­ing efforts that harm our com­mu­nity, not about a pri­vate citizen’s per­sonal opinions.

The dis­crep­an­cies among laws at the state level and cam­paigns to elim­i­nate state level pro-​LGBT leg­is­la­tion requires a fed­eral solu­tion to guar­an­tee equal rights for all peo­ple — no mat­ter their race, color, reli­gion, sex, national ori­gin, age, abil­ity, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion, or gen­der identity/​expression. This is why GetE­QUAL has recently embarked on a “Fight for the 14^th” cam­paign (www​.gete​qual​.org/​p​ledge) to demand full fed­eral equal­ity for all Amer­i­cans as guar­an­teed by the 14^th Amendment.

“For decades, we’ve called on Con­gress and the White House to make good on the promises of the 14^th Amend­ment and, year after year, our com­mu­nity has been turned away,” said Sasha Kauf­mann, state lead with GetE­QUAL Mass­a­chu­setts. “Now it’s time to go to the Amer­i­can peo­ple — to do the grass­roots orga­niz­ing work that will cre­ate a move­ment for full LGBT equal­ity and force those in power to concede.”

Nation­ally, LGBT peo­ple can be dis­crim­i­nated against in pub­lic accom­mo­da­tions, pub­lic facil­i­ties, federally-​funded pro­grams, employ­ment, hous­ing, edu­ca­tion, credit, fed­eral mar­riage recog­ni­tion, immi­gra­tion sta­tus, dis­abil­ity and fam­ily leave issues. Even in Mass­a­chu­setts, trans­gen­der res­i­dents can be dis­crim­i­nated against in pub­lic accom­mo­da­tions and facil­i­ties because the recently-​enacted Trans­gen­der Civil Rights leg­is­la­tion had those sec­tions removed by suc­cess­ful lob­by­ing of the same kinds of orga­ni­za­tions that Chick-​fil-​A sup­ports with prof­its from sales nation­wide — and by politi­cians who refuse to stand up to the bully tac­tics of these groups.

It’s time for us to demand full LGBT equal­ity under the law. For too long, the 14^th Amend­ment has remained an unful­filled promise for LGBT Amer­i­cans. As Cathy Kristof­fer­son, board mem­ber with Join the Impact Mass­a­chu­setts, asserted, “This isn’t about chicken, and this isn’t about indi­vid­ual acts of kind­ness. This isn’t about the Cathy family’s per­sonal opin­ions, and it isn’t even really about mar­riage equal­ity. This is about lives — all our lives — and whether or not we ever get to live them freely and fully equal. This is what the Fight for the 14^th is all about. Won’t you join us?”