NOM BLOG

Illinois LGBT Group Files Multiple Human Rights Compaints Against Chick-fil-A

 

From their press release:

The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA), Illinois’ largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights advocacy organization, working with cooperating attorneys and on behalf of claimants, filed multiple complaints against Chick-fil-A with The Illinois Department of Human Rights. Among other things, the complaints allege that Chick-fil-A’s “intolerant corporate culture” violates Illinois law, specifically Section 5-102(B) of the Human Rights Act, which prohibits a “public accommodation” from making protected classes “unwelcome, objectionable or unacceptable.”

“In our current high speed media and social media environment, Chick-fil-A has announced and caused to be published, to hundreds of millions of people, that LGBT people are unacceptable and objectionable,” said Jacob Meister, Governing Board President of The Civil Rights Agenda and the attorney who filed the complaint. “They have made it clear the lives of LGBT individuals are unacceptable to them and that same-gender families are unwelcome at Chick-fil-A.”

The names of the complainants are being kept confidential. “Given the extent of media coverage this issue has received, the current complainants have requested that their name be withheld from the media,” stated Anthony Martinez, Executive Director of The Civil Rights Agenda. “The complainants are a same-gender family with a daughter. Chick-fil-A used to be one of their favorite places to eat until Mr. Cathy’s latest statements were reported so widely. Now, they feel completely unwelcome in the establishment.”

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