Chick-fil-A’s ad pitch usually features a group of cows urging fast-food lovers to “eat more chicken.”
Apparently not at the University of Notre Dame, however.
About 180 squeaky wheels among students and faculty are openly requesting that university officials reject the addition of Chick-fil-A as a dining option.
The main reason is that these members of the nation’s most renowned Catholic college oppose the position of Chick-fil-A’s owners on LGBTQ issues.
Notre Dame announced that the popular fast-food eatery was under consideration for an update to its dining plans.
The critics acknowledge that most students would welcome Chick-fil-A. But they say in an open letter to campus dining managers that there are a “multitude of reasons” to just say no.
Foremost among them, the company’s “anti-LGBTQ+ activism.”
“Bringing Chick-fil-A to campus would run contrary to Notre Dame’s commitment to inclusion and desire to create good in the world,” the letter says.
The letter complimented a July 1 op-ed in the student newspaper that also objected to Chick-fil-A. In that piece, the authors resent Chick-fil-A’s “antagonism” toward the openly antagonistic LGBTQ+ community and its financial support of “queerphobic” groups, such as the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
So, according to the logic of Chick-fil-A’s critics, promoting “inclusion” at a religious college means excluding the devoutly Christian owners of one of America’s best-known and broadly supported corporate brands.
The objection is largely rooted in CEO Dan Cathy’s support for traditional marriage, meaning between a man and a woman – which, in fact, is the exact same position of the Catholic Church.
The “multitude” of reasons to oppose Chick-fil-A also include the company’s supposed practice of “factory farming” and that its menu consists “primarily of fried chicken and potatoes,” which “does not supply an array of options suitable for a diverse campus community. Vegetarians and vegans, a growing minority of the student body, would receive little benefit from a fried chicken restaurant.” So, potatoes are meat?
The authors of the op-ed suggest that a Mexican or Indian restaurant would be a better fit for “diversity.”
Indian food is an odd choice for supposed environmentalists.
After all, Indians consider cows, the animals whose farts and burps are diving up greenhouse gas emissions, sacred and not to be slaughtered. Some Indian states even punish people, sometimes with life in prison, for bovine killing.
Yet, the good news, for Chick-fil-A, is that it has fans.
The conservative website Campus Reform notes that a “large number” of Notre Dame students, desire Chick-fil-A.
An Instagram account supporting the franchise’s proposed addition once posted, “the fact that Notre Dame does not have @chickfila on campus is a Chick-fil-Abomination.”
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