Even Chick-fil-A is being threatened with boycott after hiring diversity lead
American fast food restaurant chain, Chick-fil-A. (Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)
US fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, notorious for donating to anti-LGBTQ+ organisations, is the latest company to face calls for a boycott by right-wing snowflakes, simply for hiring a vice president of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI).
But, in sad news for homophobes and extremists, a poll to decide whether conservatives will stop eating Chick-fil-A has embarrassingly backfired.
The Chick-fil-A backlash was started by Trump supporter and anti-LGBTQ+ pundit Joey Mannarino, who tweeted on Tuesday (30 May): “We have a problem.”
He added: “Chick-fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?”
Mannarino is wrong though. Chick-fil-A did not recently hire a DEI vice president — in fact Erick McReynolds has held the role since November 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In a tweet with a link to Chick-fil-A’s webpage about its DEI work, Mannarino followed his initial comments with a vile anti-trans remark.
“It’s only a matter of time until they start putting t****y semen in the frosted lemonade at this point,” he wrote.
He then followed it up with a poll asking for people’s consensus over whether to boycott the brand. It received more than 110,000 votes but unfortunately for Mannarino, the winning result was for “No, do not boycott”.
The poll results reflect the overall mixed reaction to Mannarino’s thread. Alongside the huge number of votes on the poll, his first tweet also received more than 25,000 likes and has been viewed more than 6.4 million times.
In the replies, many people said they were already boycotting the brand for its anti-LGBTQ+ history, and others highlighted the rate at which anti-LGBTQ+ people seem to be boycotting brands for a myriad of reasons.
The fast-food chain has a rocky history with the LGBTQ+ community. It has been fiercely criticised for donating to organisations that oppose LGBTQ+ rights — something it signalled it would stop doing back in 2019 but backtracked on within a matter of days — and this support has generally been praised in the eyes of right-wing politicians and other conservative figures.
Chick-fil-A’s DEI webpage states one of the brand’s core values is that “we are better together”, and that combining backgrounds and experiences can strengthen the quality of delivery.
The company says it focuses on ensuring equal access, valuing differences, and creating a culture of belonging.
On the same page, McReynolds is quoted saying: “Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognised as a place where people know they will be treated well.
“We are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business.”
