Celebrate 'Pride', Or Else

YESTERDAY I wrote that many corporations participate in LGBTQ Pride Month as a kind of insurance policy.

By celebrating Pride Month, companies establish their woke credentials.

Company executives reason that if they are ever mired in scandal, their participation in gay activism will buy them credit.

Sure we posted a mildly questionable Tweet 10 years ago that could have been taken the wrong way if someone looking to be offended took it completely out of context, but see how we support Gay Pride!

Every June it’s a good idea to pin some rainbow badges on staff, put a “Love is Love” sign in the window and maybe sponsor a kid with his sex change. It all helps.

But what of those organisations that choose not to engage in a month long orgy of LGBTQ self-love?

Fast food outlet Chick-fil-A, owned by Christian bothers Dan and Bubba Cathy, typically doesn’t promote Pride Month.

They just sell chicken burgers in June. Same as every other month.

On June 2 the company’s official Twitter account sent out the innocuous message: “You’re the best part of our day”

Chick-fil-A, Inc. @ChickfilA

You're the best part of our day ❤️

The Tweet was more than LGBTQ activists could bear. The company’s failure to acknowledge Pride Month needed to be confronted.

Taking time out from promoting love and tolerance and diversity and inclusion, activists bombarded the Christian company’s social media platforms with hateful messages, pictures of gay sex and threats.

A social media graphic suggesting that Chick-fil-A’s refusal to celebrate Pride Month meant the company wanted gay people dead went viral.

‘Celebrate us or it means you want us dead’, seems like a pretty reasonable response to people who don’t want to participate in your month-long gay parade.

Chick-fil-A will stand their ground. But most businesses are too chicken. Easier to wave a rainbow flag than risk your bottom line.

So when you see corporations proudly displaying LGBTQ colours and making statements about the importance of diversity and inclusion and trans rights, just remember, it’s not what it appears to be.