NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Concerned citizens who e-mail McDonald’s to protest the restaurant chain’s support of the homosexual agenda are receiving an e-mail response from McDonald’s defending their actions.
The American Family Association, which encouraged thousands of supporters to contact McDonald’s, is refuting McDonald’s in a point by point response.
“Unfortunately, McDonald’s is attempting to confuse the fact that they are supporting the homosexual agenda in an e-mail they are sending to those who contact them about the matter,” Don Wildmon, founder and chairman of AFA, wrote in an Action Alert to supporters April 7.
Wildmon said the key indisputable fact is that McDonald’s joined the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and has an executive on the chamber’s board of directors.
Wildmon clarified to Baptist Press that someone forwarded him the e-mail AFA is responding to after he sent an Action Alert April 3. Other citizens have indicated to Baptist Press that they received a different e-mail from McDonald’s, carried in its entirety later in this article.
According to AFA, McDonald’s includes the following statement in at least one version of an e-mail response to concerned citizens: “At McDonald’s, we treat all our employees and customers with dignity and respect regardless of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or any other differentiating factor.”
AFA said in response, “We are not telling McDonald’s who they can hire to work for the company, nor are we demanding that they stop serving Big Macs to homosexual customers.
“This issue is about the world’s largest fast food chain allying itself and partnering with an organization that lobbies Congress to enact laws that we feel can be used to repress religious freedom or undermine the sanctity of marriage,” AFA said.
Another statement in the McDonald’s e-mail says that “while one McDonald’s employee is affiliated with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), McDonald’s is in no way ‘aggressively promoting the homosexual agenda’ as suggested in the [AFA] newsletter.”
AFA, in response to the statement, said, “To refer to Richard Ellis, who is the vice president of communications for McDonald’s, as ‘one McDonald’s employee,’ as if he is a teenager flipping hamburgers, is disingenuous at best.”
Though it admitted that “aggressively” is a subjective term, AFA said “giving money to and partnering with a homosexual lobby organization is certainly an enthusiastic promotion of the homosexual agenda.”
McDonald’s pointed out that the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting economic opportunities for the homosexual business community. But AFA noted that the chamber’s website makes clear that it also lobbies Congress on a wide range of issues related to the homosexual agenda.
McDonald’s, in its e-mail response to citizens’ complaints, noted that “there are numerous other Fortune 500 companies that serve as corporate partners with NGLCC.”
“AFA rejects this ‘everybody’s doing it’ excuse offered by McDonald’s,” the AFA rebuttal said, “and is asking the fast food company to remain neutral in these controversial skirmishes of the culture war.”
McDonald’s also said all references to comments from Jim Skinner, McDonald’s CEO, in the AFA Action Alert e-mailed April 3 “are complete fabrications.”
AFA conceded that they wrongly assumed his comments were specifically addressing the promotion of the homosexual agenda, and the pro-family group apologized for the confusion.
“However, the actual comments attributed to Mr. Skinner were not fabricated, but instead came from McDonald’s own Web site,” AFA wrote. “They were a direct quote of Mr. Skinner’s comments, posted by Vice President Bob Langert, made by Mr. Skinner at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in 2007.
“When Mr. Skinner said, ‘We have an obligation to use our size and resources to make a difference in the world,’ we now have come to believe that part of that vision, as evidenced by McDonald’s partnership with the NGLCC, is the promotion of the gay agenda,” AFA concluded.
Ellis was elected to the advocacy group’s eight-member board of directors in March, according to a news release from the NGLCC.
“I’m thrilled to join the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce team and ready to get to work,” Ellis said, according to the news release. “I share the NGLCC’s passion for business growth and development within the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] community and I look forward to playing a role in moving these important initiatives forward.”
The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, according to its website, “represents the interests of the estimated 1.4 million LGBT owned businesses in the United States. Through its affiliated network of 45 state and local chambers and business organizations, the NGLCC is the largest LGBT business development and economic advocacy organization in the country.”
McDonald’s is listed on the chamber’s website among “corporate partners and organizational allies.”
“You have to buy your way onto the board,” Don Wildmon, founder and chairman of AFA, told Baptist Press April 3. “In other words, McDonald’s paid money to be a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. … I was surprised at McDonald’s, and I think it’s going to hurt them pretty bad.”
Wildmon told BP a boycott of McDonald’s “is always a possibility” in such a situation.
At least one other e-mail received by citizens who complained to McDonald’s reads as follows:
“Thank you for contacting McDonald’s. We appreciate this opportunity to share information regarding our commitment to our employees as well as the communities that we serve.
“First, it’s important to note that McDonald’s respects and values people. Diversity and inclusion are business imperatives and integral components of McDonald’s culture. We believe that by embracing our differences we are better enabled to value and respect other people as well as understand differing points of view.
“We have a long and proud history of leadership in these areas. We continually strive to maintain an environment in which everyone feels valued and accepted. We encourage employees to recognize and appreciate the contributions that all diverse groups and individuals bring to the McDonald’s system.
“Thank you for sharing your personal point of view on this topic with us.”
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Erin Roach is a staff writer for Baptist Press.
