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Chick-Fil-A Donates Almost $2 million To Anti-Gay and Hate Groups

It is not unusual for a business to donate to a pro-business PAC or group without noticing that the PAC supports candidates who are anti-gay. This is what happened with Target in Minnesota where they donated to a PAC that supported anti-gay but pro-megacorp candidate Tom Emmer. That is not the same situation as what Chick-fil-A is facing, though. That company has donated more than $1 million to anti-gay groups between 2003 and 2008. In fact, they gave almost $2 million to these groups are not PACs supporting anti-gay groups, but are known homophobic hate groups.

Dan Cathy is busy denying that the company has “an agenda against anyone”, but Equality Matters found out that they donated through their charity arm WinShape, some $1.7 million.

According to their press release:

WinShape Is Chick-Fil-A’s Charitable Arm. The WinShape Foundation is Chick-fil-A’s charitable arm, created by Chick-fil-A founder and chairman S. Truett Cathy in 1984. WinShape has received a substantial amount of funding from Chick-fil-A: in 2009 alone, WinShape received $7,814,788 from Chick-fil-A Inc. [Winshape 2009 Publicly Available IRS 990 Form via Foundation Center, accessed 10/28/11]

WinShape Gave Over $1.7 Million To Anti-Gay Groups. In 2009 alone, WinShape donated $1,733,699 to multiple anti-gay groups:

Marriage & Family Legacy Fund: $994,199
Fellowship Of Christian Athletes: $480,000
National Christian Foundation: $240,000
Focus On The Family: $12,500
Eagle Forum: $5,000
Exodus International: $1,000
Family Research Council: $1,000

What is more, Chick-Fil-A Vice President Donald Cathy, halped to launch the Marriage and Family Legacy Fund which “pool[s] funds for a national marriage media campaign and provide start-up grants for local initiatives to promote stable, lasting marriages.”

The MFLF was created in order to be the “implementation and funding arm” for the Marriage CoMission, which is a group out there attacking marriage equality.

The rest of the report can be read here.

Needless to say, the denials seem rather hollow when looked at in the light of day.