From airports to college campuses, Chick-fil-A has been under increasing scrutiny in recent months for upholding traditional views on marriage.
In March, the San Antonio International Airport became the latest in a string of several businesses to ban Chick-fil-A from its premises based on the assumption that the Atlanta-based chain has a “legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior.”
Earlier that month, Rider University in New Jersey denied the proposal to bring the restaurant on campus due to what they perceived as the restaurant’s “opposition to the LGBTQ+ community.”
And now, in what must amount to the most outlandish statement made about the Christian-owned company, a faculty chairperson at California Polytechnic State University compared having the fast-food chain on campus to selling pornography in their bookstore.
The vice chair of the university’s academic senate, Thomas Gutierrez, told the school newspaper, “We don’t sell pornography in the bookstore and we don’t have a Hooters on campus — we already pre-select those kind of things based on our existing values.”
“This is a similar thing,” Gutierrez added. “The difference is we’re actually profiting from this. So our money, every dollar a student is spending at Chick-fil-A, is going to these causes that are in violation of our values.”
The faculty senate at the college voted to boot Chick-fil-A off campus, citing their support for “anti-LGBT causes” as the reason. The senate based their accusations on donations that the restaurant’s CEO has made to faith-based organizations, stating that the donations are inconsistent with the university values of inclusivity and diversity.
An overwhelming majority of 38 out of the 44 senate members voted to ban Chick-fil-A.
However, it seems Cal Poly has no current plans to do so, at least for now. Chick-fil-A signed another 5-year contract with the school in 2018, so it is anticipated that America’s favorite chicken chain will be there to stay for at least a few more years.
In a statement, Cal Poly said they pay close attention to the hiring and employment practices of contractors on campus, and they’ve never received a complaint about Chick-fil-A in the 25 years that it’s been there.
The statement continued:
“While university administration passionately disagrees with the values of some of the organizations the president of Chick-fil-A has chosen to make personal donations to, we do not believe in responding to intolerance with intolerance…
Rather, we must model our values of inclusion. That means upholding the rights of others to have different perspectives and ensuring there is space in our community for differing viewpoints and ideologies, even those that may be in direct conflict with our own.”
