The Chick-fil-A restaurant on Emory University's Atlanta campus, the target of protests due to the company's anti-gay stands, will be removed this summer, the college newspaper reported today via Twitter.
"Chick-fil-A to be removed from Cox Hall this summer as part of FACE's new Cox Hall layout," tweeted the Emory Wheel, the independent campus newspaper.
After controversy over Chick-fil-A heated up last summer, following Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy bragging to a Christian media outlet that his company was “guilty as charged” in opposing gay marriage, Emory's LGBT alumni group, GALA, sent a letter Aug. 23 to Emory President James Wagner raising concerns about the company’s millions in donations to groups that oppose LGBT rights.
LGBT alumni and students at Atlanta’s Emory University won’t back down from their call to kick Chick-fil-A out of campus dining, despite a national gay activist’s revelation that he has formed a friendship with Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy.
Shane Windmeyer, executive director of national group Campus Pride, drew headlines with his Jan. 28 column posted on Huffington Post, “Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A.”
Windmeyer wrote that “after months of personal phone calls, text messages and in-person meetings,” including attending the Chick-fil-A bowl with Cathy on New Year’s Eve in Atlanta, he now considers Cathy a friend.
LGBT Campus Pride ED says Chick-fil-A tax forms show no donations to ‘most divisive’ anti-gay groups
Atlanta-based fast food chain Chick-fil-A found itself in a world of controversy last year after reports surfaced that the company was funding anti-gay groups like Exodus International and Focus on the Family through the company's WinShape Foundation.
The controversy was only heightened when the company's President and COO Dan Cathy said Chick-fil-A was “guilty as charged” in opposing same-sex marriage rights. Cathy's comments sparked protests, counterprotests and a series of boycotts by LGBT activists.
But a new first-person column published today by Campus Pride Executive Director Shane Windmeyer suggests that the chicken chain's WinShape Foundation has suspended donations to groups that advocate against same-sex marriage rights.
Leaders of seven LGBT student organizations at Emory University sent a letter today to school administrators decrying the ongoing presence of Chick-fil-A on the Decatur campus and asking Emory to end its "contractual relationship" with the fast food chain immediately.
Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, reiterated his restaurant chain's support for "Biblical families" — and you can be damned sure that does not include supporting same-sex couples and our families, despite hints maybe they didn't hate us.
When it comes to Biblical families, does that mean Mr. Cathy supports the ones where the wife has to be a virgin when married? The ones where a man can marry many women? And the many other weird (according to today's standards) combinations the Bible endorsed?
In case you are still interested in the ongoing saga of Chick-fil-A and its anti-gay mission (but seriously, you all should know by now they do not care about LGBT people and our civil rights), here's a video clip of Cathy being interviewed by Atlanta news station WXIA: