r/Liverpool • u/anagoge • 12h ago
General Question How do you feel about Chick-fil-A opening in Liverpool when its current chairman campaigns against equal rights?
Former CEO Dan Cathy, the son of Chick-fil-A’s founder Truett Cathy drew ire in 2012 when he told Christian publication The Baptist Press that he believed in the “biblical definition of the family unit,” signalling his opposition to marriage equality.
The Chick-fil-A Foundation donated $1.8 million to three anti-LGBTQ+ organizations in 2017, $1,653,416 going to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which enforces a "sexual purity" policy that bars "homosexual acts."
Cathy was revealed by the Daily Beast in 2021 to be among several Christian billionaires who gave millions to the National Christian Charitable Foundation (NCF), which has spearheaded the blockage of the Equality Act, which would update federal laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit, and jury service.
Source: https://www.advocate.com/news/chick-fil-a-lgbtq-record
Cathy is no longer CEO. Instead, he is now Chairman. His son is now CEO instead. The above quotes are of course related to the US, but this is a family business. Their views and opinions still guide the business now that it's in Liverpool too.
Liverpool's Chick-fil-A brings it to six in the UK. They're pushing to open more. Would you support a Liverpool-based business knowing the above? Especially in Liverpool, the city is (at least for the most part) open and welcoming to minorities. Having a business recently open up that has had a CEO and still has a Chairman that is still actively against those minorities is completely at odds with the city's "all are welcome" nature.
The majority of people walking through into its Liverpool venue won't know about the active campaigning against equal rights. There will be a huge demographic of particularly young people who may be giving money to the same business fighting against them.
In 2019, they tried to open in Reading, but closed a year later due to these reasons. They tried in Scotland, and also closed a year later due to the same reasons. They have since hired a "head of diversity".
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A#United_Kingdom
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66813904
How you feel about stepping foot in a Liverpool-based business that is actively trying to make it harder for people to live their life?