On June 12, 2016, 49 people were murdered in cold blood at a night club in Orlando, Florida. Still more were injured. Still more survived, but lost family members and friends in the attack. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. We have all read countless articles, seen countless headlines and heard countless opinions about the nature of this attack since that tragic day. A few details about the shooter cannot be disputed: He was an American and he specifically chose a gay night club to attack. His connections to ISIS are a bit murky, however. He claimed allegiance to them during the attack, but the CIA has yet to find any evidence linking the shooter to ISIS and his own parents claim he is not very religious. One important detail they did point out was that he had become enraged after seeing two men kiss, which leads me to believe that this was a hate crime against the LGBTQ+ community.

Unfortunately, many people are either ignoring or refusing to see the homophobic implications of this attack. These people often focus solely on the possible link to ISIS or the lack of "good guys with guns" at the night club. Many people choose to see this tragedy as an attack on Americans, not on LGBTQ+ folk specifically. People with this viewpoint can still be helpful, though. Fast food restaurant Chick-Fil-A decided to work on a Sunday (typically they are closed) to provide free food for people in line to donate blood for the victims. This was a great thing to do--blood donors were desperately needed and it was very generous of Chick-Fil-A to volunteer to work on the day they are normally closed. Commenters on Facebook and on the Christian-leaning website To Save A Life praise Chick-Fil-A for "tolerance", amongst other things. The general feel I get from the commenters is that this good deed is being viewed as a great example of Christians helping people without approving of their "lifestyle choices".

I take great issue with the praise Chick-Fil-A is getting for this. In no way am I saying that providing free food on your day off to blood donors is a bad thing. In fact, it was such a good idea that Pizza Hut did the same thing (various local restaurants also donated money). What I am saying is that Chick-Fil-A's good deed does not make their years of hate toward the LGBTQ+ community moot. In 2012, it became public knowledge that Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy operated his business based on "traditional family values"--i.e., one man and one woman make a marriage. It also became known that the company had donated almost $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2010 alone. Some of these groups include Exodus International, Eagle Forum, Focus on the Family and its off-shoot, Family Research Council. Focus on the Family and Family Research Council have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The groups report such falsehoods as a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, a greater rate of violence in same-gender households, and that a goal of the gay community is to abolish age of consent laws. What is even more troubling is that they support conversion therapy, a cruel attempt at changing a gay child into a straight one, often leaving them with horrible psychological stress to battle with for the rest of their lives. Focus on the Family continues to be a powerful right-wing lobbying group, impacting what kinds of laws are passed in relation to LGBTQ+ issues.

I've described only two of the organizations Chick-Fil-A has monetarily supported, but that should be enough to convince anyone of the damage the restaurant chain has already done on the lives of LGBTQ+ folks. A recent New York Times article found that LGBTQ+ people are the most likely group to be targets of a hate crime. This is not surprising given that organizations like Focus on the Family exist solely to portray gay people as criminals. Everyone who says that Chick-Fil-A simply "disagrees" with a gay lifestyle should look into the anti-gay organizations they help fund. To compare someone to a pedophile simply because of who they love is not just a "disagreement"; it's hatred.

The free food may have been for the blood donors, but Chick-Fil-A is the one with blood on its hands. It is completely hypocritical for them to fuel anti-gay hatred and then expect praise for doing one good thing that kind of helps the gay community.

So next time you see a headline praising Chick-Fil-A for helping LGBTQ+ people, take a careful look at where your money would be going before deciding to eat there.