An LGBTQ media voice renewed the attack on Chick-fil-A this past weekend in the backdrop of Saturday's Peach Bowl college football game. The SB Nation sports blog's LGBTQ extension, Outsports, accused Peach Bowl sponsor Chick-fil-A and its foundation of bringing mental harm to LGBTQ athletes. Writer Cyd Zeigler says the Christian-owned restaurant chain is demeaning LGBTQ people by supporting organizations devoted to God’s design for sexual intimacy through the context of marriage. The story's headline reads Chick-fil-A's participation in sports is a "big F-you to LGBTQ people."
Zeigler said he couldn't get past Chick-fil-A's donations, totaling millions of dollars, to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), "an organization that actively demeans LGBTQ people, invalidates our relationships and brings untold mental harm to gay, lesbian, bi and queer athletes." Zeigler's attack on Chick-fil-A preceded the Peach Bowl football game between Florida and Michigan.
To LGBTQ pressure groups, such Christian organizations aren't living out their faith, they're doubling down on "the support of anti-LGBTQ causes, one of which takes direct aim at gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer athletes." Such faith-based beliefs shouldn't see the light of day in public.
To Zeigler, Chick-fil-A's sponsorship of the Peach Bowl and events like the Pittsburgh Marathon represent a sports world that puts money over the well-being of a demographic whose suicide rate and rate of self-harm should be alarming to everyone. As if Chick-fil-A is responsible for the individual decisions made by people who choose not to follow biblical values. Zeigler mocked Chick-fil-A for being "so religious" that its restaurants "are banned" from opening on Sundays, "the Lord's day." Now there's tolerance!
"Fellowship of Christian Athletes is an anti-gay organization," Zeigler writes. Its nine-point “statement of faith” "makes it very clear that gay people are to remain celibate, they are not allowed to marry, and they are not welcome." This is 2018 after all and Heaven forbid anyone to follow these archaic beliefs:
"We believe God’s design for sexual intimacy is to be expressed only within the context of marriage. God instituted marriage between one man and one woman as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason, we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman."
Zeigler extrapolates that faith statement to mean FCA is telling gay people "they are not worthy, their self-expression in sex is not OK, their relationships are not valid... and they should stay far away." He complains that these biblically based values are written in stone and not up for debate. Worse yet, he says, Chick-fil-A's financial support of FCA supports the marginalization of "one of the most disenfranchised communities in all of sports."
It's so "disenfranchised" in fact that its wealth has secured the power of politicians and judges who champion its agenda in the highest branches of government.
