By Suzanne Bowdey

It’s one thing to catch a local Chick-fil-A rebelling against Christian values — and quite another for headquarters to defend it. After this month’s revelation that an Orem, Utah location was publicly supporting same-sex marriage in a congratulatory post on Facebook (a post that’s still there), several disappointed customers reached out to corporate, hoping for an apology — or at least clarity — on what they saw as a public departure from the chain’s longtime beliefs. What they got instead was further confirmation that the Cathys’ beloved empire has lost its way.

According to an LGBT magazine in Salt Lake City, people who’ve complained about the post have gotten the following response:

Obviously, we’d expect a company rooted (at least formerly) in biblical values to serve everyone. That’s scriptural. But there’s a difference between selling a chicken sandwich to someone and celebrating their behavior. 

Regardless, it’s absolutely baffling in America’s current pushback climate that any company — let alone a self-proclaimed Christian one — would openly admit to “embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)” in “everything we do.” Obviously, this isn’t a business caught unaware by a single rogue operator. This is a business with a deep and pervasive problem of activism.

As Megan Basham asked, “what’s going on here??” What indeed.

While skeptics are tempted to pin all of this on the Orem managers, that argument falls apart under the weight of the company’s other policies. If the local operators can’t declare, “I want to be open on Sundays,” how can they say, “I’ll message on something antithetical to Chick-fil-A’s beliefs”? Either the mission statement exists — “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us” — or it doesn’t.

Either way, the entire controversy is astounding. On what planet would consumers expect Chick-fil-A to be to the left of places like AT&T, Toyota, McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, and dozens more? It boggles the mind, the Political Forum’s Steve Soukup agreed. But, he was quick to point out, “It’s important to remember that Chick-fil-A is a privately held company. Consumer pressure can do a great deal to change corporate misbehavior, but often, shareholder pressure is even more potent, and I think this is one such case,” he observed. 

“For years, social conservatives were buoyed in the culture wars by the ability of companies like Hobby Lobby to resist left-wing political trends and fads because of their private ownership. Chick-fil-A’s insensitivity to the current of cultural rebalancing represents the mirror image of that resistance,” Soukup lamented. “Robby Starbuck was wise to target left-leaning corporations with right-leaning customer bases because that gave his efforts immediate impact. Nevertheless, in Robby’s undertakings, the threat of shareholder frustration always implicitly backed up the threat of unhappy customers. That’s not the case with Chick-fil-A,” he said, “which appears to have decided, at least for the time being, to remain on the wrong side of the cultural-counter-revolution.”

Of course, in this instance, some would argue that Christians are the shareholders, and a company that’s held itself out to represent them is beholden to that same community. It’s why believers have been so disappointed by the moral failings that have plagued the brand since 2019. It’s also why they have the power to demand, with the same grassroots enthusiasm that forced the hands of Target and Anheuser-Busch, faithfulness to the standard Chick-fil-A has set for itself. 

In the meantime, there’s plenty of puzzling about why the shift happened at all. Maybe, the Free Enterprise’s Stefan Padfield speculated to The Washington Stand, Truett’s grandson Andrew (now CEO) and his team “are true believers, in the sense that they wholeheartedly agree with things like discrimination in the name of anti-discrimination and men becoming women simply by saying so.” Or, he suggested, “the relevant decision-makers might be radical activists themselves or under the spell of some. … These types don’t really care if they destroy the business so long as they can pat themselves on the back for being ‘on the right side of history.’” 

They could also be living under a rock, Padfield supposed, not realizing how “toxic DEI has become.” Or “they could be misguided opportunists who think marketing themselves as pro-DEI will somehow lead to greater returns. Regardless,” he said, “Chick-fil-A is free to embrace DEI — and we are free to eat elsewhere.”

Family Research Council’s David Closson is equally stunned by the chain’s departure from the Cathys’ legacy, but he had plenty to say about what the executive team is getting wrong. “When Chick-fil-A says it ‘embraces everyone,’ that’s faithful to Scripture,” he notes. “But to embrace contested identities — such as transgender identities or identities rooted in same-sex behavior — as morally legitimate expressions is something altogether different. A company grounded in Christian conviction should be able to love and serve every person without endorsing categories that contradict biblical truth,” Closson insists. 

That’s why the statement about “‘embracing all people regardless of … sexual orientation or gender identity’ and its commitment to embedding DEI into ‘everything we do’ raises legitimate concern,” he stressed. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks in corporate America are not neutral. They typically operate from a moral vision that conflicts with the Christian understanding of creation, sin, identity, and human purpose,” Closson continued. “DEI, as commonly practiced, does not merely require treating all people kindly. It demands the affirmation of identity categories and behaviors Scripture calls believers to lovingly but firmly reject.”

As he underscored, “Christians can and should affirm kindness, hospitality, and equal treatment for all customers and employees. But love for neighbor never requires affirming what God calls sinful or endorsing identities that obscure rather than reflect His created design. A mission committed to glorifying God must be anchored in truth as well as compassion,” Closson urged. “When corporate statements blur that distinction, they drift from a biblical foundation toward a secular ethic that cannot sustain the Christian identity Chick-fil-A has sought to cultivate over the years.” 

This is a company, he pointed out, that “sought to distinguish itself from other national brands by appealing to its founder’s Christian convictions. Unfortunately,” Closson added, “recent developments suggest that this commitment increasingly functions as marketing rather than sincere conviction.”

As a former manager of a North Carolina Chick-fil-A told TWS, “Many think that they hold to great values. I beg to differ. They uphold great standards of customer service — but that does not equate to values.” 

That doesn’t mean the company can’t change. Look at the transformation we’ve seen from U.S. businesses that no one dreamed would shift to neutrality. Instead of clinging to obsolete DEI when the rest of corporate America has walked away, how about leaning into the faith-based identity that most loyalists already take for granted? Stop trafficking in this false idea of Christianity that offends. Move the vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion to a charitable project, ask for moral compliance from every operator representing the brand, and most of all, stop being afraid of who you are and the convictions you were built to represent. 

That, not wokeism, is how you honor Truett’s legacy. That, not compromise, is how you live out Chick-fil-A’s purpose.

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.