Conservative Christians – including the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Family Research Council (FRC) – are outraged that Chick-fil-A isn’t as homophobic as they would like the fast food chain to be.

At issue is a Facebook post from an Orem, Utah, franchisee celebrating two young men who got married.

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“CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HAPPY COUPLE!” the December 3 post reads. “Dougie & Toby recently got married and we are so beyond happy for them!”

The restaurant has limited comments on the post, and most of them at the moment are supportive of the couple.

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Instead of celebrating the happiness that Dougie and Toby found, FRC was outraged that the pictures were posted at all. A December 4 article on the group’s Washington Stand website says the restaurant “waffles on wokeness” for “condoning a message that is radically at odds with the biblical values that most people associate them with.”

“While most of Chick-fil-A’s chains are run by local operators, the fact that any location felt comfortable posting such a controversial message is further proof that the company hasn’t weeded out the LGBT extremism that sparked so much backlash just a couple of years ago,” FRC’s website states. “Chick-fil-A built a business model based almost entirely on faith. And frankly, that means they should be held to a higher standard.”

Christians even tried to get Chick-fil-A corporate to denounce the franchisee, but no dice.

“Chick-fil-A embraces all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity,” the company’s corporate office said in a statement it’s been sending out to people who complained about the Facebook post, according to FRC. The statement also says that the company is “embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in everything we do.”

“When Chick-fil-A says it ‘embraces everyone,’ that’s faithful to Scripture,” David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview, said. “But to embrace contested identities — such as transgender identities or identities rooted in same-sex behavior — as morally legitimate expressions is something altogether different. A company grounded in Christian conviction should be able to love and serve every person without endorsing categories that contradict biblical truth.”

“For years, social conservatives were buoyed in the culture wars by the ability of companies like Hobby Lobby to resist left-wing political trends and fads because of their private ownership,” said Steve Soukup of Political Forum, a rightwing blog. “Chick-fil-A’s insensitivity to the current of cultural rebalancing represents the mirror image of that resistance.”

Free Enterprise Project Director Stefan Padfield told the Washington Stand: “Chick-fil-A is free to embrace DEI — and we are free to eat elsewhere.”

The media first reported on Chick-fil-A’s anti-LGBTQ+ donations in January 2011, when several large donations to anti-LGBTQ+ organizations like Family Research Council and the conversion therapy group Exodus International were uncovered.

The company’s CEO, Dan Cathy, said that they were “guilty as charged” when it came to homophobia.

Despite some attempts to shift, Chick-fil-A has continued to donate to organizations that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and that have official anti-LGBTQ+ policies, until as recently as 2017.

But the fast food chain has cleaned up its image in the last several years as it tries to expand internationally, and has even been accused by major Republicans of being too woke. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said that Chick-fil-A surrendered to “anti-Christian hate groups” last year, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the chain “badly lost its way” for having a DEI initiative at all.

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