According to the New Civil Rights Movement, Chick-Fil-A donated $5 million to anti-LGBT groups between 2003 and 2010; according to Equality Matters, in 2010 alone it spent $2 million in donations to groups like the Family Research Council and Exodus International. There can be no mistaking Chick-Fil-A’s commitment to stopping marriage equality. Its more than 1600 franchises in twenty-nine states—where customers drop in to “Eat mor chikin” (and what kind of cockamamie tagline is that?)—earn around $4.1 billion a year. The several million dollars the company has contributed to causes that promote discrimination and bigotry are just a drop in the finger-lickin’-good chicken bucket.

Chick-Fil-A’s president, Dan Cathy, when confronted with these facts, wasted no time owning it. “Guilty as charged.” He also said, “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage’ . . . . I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”

In spite of Dan Cathy, Chick-Fil-A, the Family Research Council, Exodus International, the National Organization for Marriage—and all the rest of the groups that put a hand on the Bible while spouting hate and homophobia—the goal of national marriage equality is getting closer.

For example, New York State, the sixth state, plus DC, to legislate marriage equality, just noted the first anniversary of that historic law (which went into effect 24 July 2011). Among several upbeat responses to my post about it on the Equality Mantra was this comment: “So if a father wanted to marry his daughter, or a brother wants to marry his sister—they are all consenting adults—they should have the right to get married, too. That’s marriage equality, right??”

Every day on the Equality Mantra, which promotes LGBT (civil/human) rights and marriage equality—where people are supposed to feel accepted, embraced, and safe—we are assaulted by hateful comments. Just two days ago, someone wrote, “Gays should all be murdered.” Then there was this note, “Fags should all be locked up and burned.” What Chick-Fil-A and other organizations that support institutionalized discrimination are saying, though in more formal language than we get on our page, is equally homophobic and inflammatory: that LGBT people are lesser, they do not deserve equal treatment, there is something wrong with them, and they are sinners in the eyes of God.

The Chick-Fil-A flap led to this often quoted post on Facebook: “So pretend I open up a bakery. Let’s call it ‘Awesome Bakery.’ I make a LOT of money with that bakery and give a whole lot of it to a group called ‘We love everybody, inc.’ Something not a lot of people know is that ‘We love everybody, inc.’ is going to the country of Neverland and fighting really hard to get a law passed. This law would put all Christian people on trial and those Christians might end up getting sentenced to death, just for being Christian. Would you spend money in my bakery? How would you feel if thousands of people on Facebook defended my right to give money to ‘We love everybody, inc.? And thousands more started campaigns saying ‘Support Awesome Bakery! They’re just doing what they believe in!’ Would you be upset if your non-Christian friends or family said those same things? Think about it.” ~Jamie Equality McGonnigal

On at least one thread featuring this comment, someone who identifies as a devout Christian took terrible offense. In the abstract, I can’t blame him. Substitute another word for “Christians”—Jews, women, African Americans, seniors, Muslims, teenagers, obese people (you get my drift); substitute the label with which you identify, and you will be offended.

But that is precisely the point of Ms. McGonnigal’s rant: Chick-Fil-A’s stance and actions against equality are offensive to LGBT people, deeply so. What’s more, whereas Ms. McGonnigal’s post is hypothetical—Christians as a group are not routinely demonized and threatened—Chick-Fil-A’s actions are real and doing real damage, to a community that is already vulnerable in our discriminatory system.

To their credit, and also as a testament to the seriousness with which corporate and political spheres are protesting Chick-Fil-A’s stance and actions, the Jim Henson Company and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, among others, have severed ties with the company. The Henson company statement read, “[We have] celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors.” In a scathing letter to Mr. Cathy, Mayor Menino wrote, “You called supporters of gay marriage ‘prideful.’ Here in Boston, to borrow your own words, we are ‘guilty as charged.’ We are mindful of pride for our support for same sex marriage and our work to expand freedom to all people. We are proud that our state and our city have led the way for the country on equal marriage rights.”

Advocates for equality try to take the high road, because battling hate with hate doesn’t bring progress. But it makes our blood boil to hear leaders of industry, politicians, and clergy people—and anyone else who subscribes to this sort of discrimination—blithely talking about depriving a whole segment of the human population of the same rights that the heterosexual majority enjoy without a second thought. We reject this kind of talk, and this bigotry, out of hand. As Martin Luther King Jr. so famously said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

So believe and worship as you will. We’ll honor your freedom of religion, if you respect our freedom from it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, bigotry wrapped in religion is still bigotry, and no amount of praying is going to change that.

Learn more about Rachel’s new novel here —-> Driving in the Rain

Join Rachel on Facebook here —-> The Equality Mantra