It just got a lot harder to get your hands on delicious chicken in the United Kingdom.
After only weeks in operation, Britain’s first Chick-fil-A location will close down after widespread backlash and left-wing activism convinced the Reading shopping center where the United States fast-food company had opened a store not to renew their lease. That’s right: An angry mob of illiberal protesters just effectively got a Christian business shut down, all over dubious and exaggerated outrage entirely unrelated to their business practices in the first place.
A new UK-based @ChickfilA will be closing after a shopping center said they would not renew its lease following a campaign by pro-gay protesters to shut down the restaurant. https://t.co/9PtDY0XZv0
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 18, 2019
Of course, the illiberal activists who got the Christian chick-chain in hot water celebrated the lease’s cancellation, gloating that their mob tactics have seemingly paid off. According to Christian Today, the left-wing activist group Reading Pride led regular protests targeting the Chick-fil-A location, promising to continue until the company left their region. They called the lease’s cancellation “good news.”
It’s anything but.
First, let’s be clear: Chick-fil-A is not the anti-gay company unhinged critics make it out to be. Its actual business practices indicate no prejudice or discrimination of any kind, as the company both serves and employs gay and lesbian people gladly. As it noted in an official statement, “There are 145,000 people — black, white; gay, straight; Christian, non-Christian — who represent Chick-fil-A.”
Critics, though, attack the company for its owners’ private religious beliefs and stated opposition to gay marriage. They also target the company and its owners’ charitable actions.
This often manifests itself in unhinged criticisms of their donations to supposedly “anti-LGBT” groups such as the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Of course, the actual work these groups do is far from objectionable, such as serving the poor and promoting athletics, making these criticisms absurd. Critics point to the employment policies of these charities and deem them “bigoted” because they’re in line with traditional Christian beliefs and require employees to abide by them as well (i.e. not be in a gay marriage).
Yet Chick-fil-A supports the work they do, not every line in their human resources manual. The company has said as much, explaining, “Our giving has always focused on youth and education. We have never donated with the purpose of supporting a social or political agenda.”
Some of the outrage, too, is based on outright lies and fabrication. For instance, last week I debunked a viral liberal hoax, supported by the partisan “fact-checkers” at Snopes, that claimed that Chick-fil-A funded anti-gay death penalty laws in Uganda. There was zero truth to this claim, but that didn’t stop hundreds of thousands of liberals from sharing it online.
This hoax was emblematic of the entire campaign against Chick-fil-A, which is wrought with overreaction and baseless hostility. And it’s incredibly concerning to see such an illiberal approach paying dividends in the U.K., with the company essentially being run out of town. This is the literal definition of bigotry: intolerance for opinions other than your own.
In a healthy, pluralistic society, people must be able to co-exist and do business with people they disagree with, even on important and personal matters. The successful campaign against Chick-fil-A shows that the U.K. is not such a society.
And it offers a warning cry of what could happen here in the U.S. if we continue to bow to illiberal mobs. When it comes to Chick-fil-A, liberal consumers and activists should stop judging the company based on its owners’ private beliefs and instead base their opinion on its business practices and products.
And on the quality of their delicious chicken. On that, there’s simply no debate.
