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Donald Trump Served Anti-LGBTQ Chick-fil-A to Athletes at White House
Donald Trump Served Anti-LGBTQ Chick-fil-A to Athletes at White House
Athletes from North Dakota were served chicken sandwiches from the fast food chain whose CEO continually donates to anti-LGBTQ causes.Â
For the second time this year, Donald Trump has invited an athletic team to the White House and boasted about serving them fast food. But this time, chicken sandwiches from the virulently anti-LGBTQ company Chick-fil-A were arranged on silver platters for champions on the North Dakota State Bison football team Monday, according to CNN.
"We could've had chefs, we could have, but we had fast food -- because I know you people," Trump said told the athletes.
"Chick-fil-A, they say? Chick-fil-A," Trump repeated as he gestured to the sandwiches.
In January, a surreal video of Trump extolling the virtues of "great American [fast] food" from Wendy's, Burger King, and McDonalds that he served to members of the Clemson University Tigers went viral along with photos of Trump posing in the White House dining room between silver trays loaded with burgers and a candelabra.
When the White House hosted the Clemson team, Trump told his guests that he served them fast food as a result of the government shutdown. This time, he implied that he chose to serve fast food in order to support American companies.
"We like American companies, OK?" Trump told the athletes on Monday.
Chick-fil-A has a long history of donating millions to anti-LGBTQ organizations. The corporation, under CEO Dan Cathy, has contributed to organizations deemed hate groups, including Exodus International and the Family Research Council. In 2012, Cathy spoke publicly about his opposition to marriage equality, which led to boycotts of the company.
"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," Cathy said at the time, confirming that he did not support marriage equality. "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."
Faced with criticism and boycotts of the chain, Cathy vowed he would stop donating to anti-LGBTQ organizations, but years after his promise, in 2015, Chick-fil-A donated $1 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which has a purity clause that bans "homosexual acts."
Chick-fil-A is one of the largest American companies without an LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination policy and has a zero score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index.
