A Chicago restaurant served fried chicken sandwiches poking fun at Chick-fil-A during a pop-up on Sunday in an effort to raise money for a local LGBTQ+ group.
Void, which is usually an Italian American restaurant, sold the sandwiches with nuggets and fries over the weekend as part of its "Chick-Feel-Gay" event, offering customers a "more gay, less repressed version of that chicken chain you’re thinking of." The restaurant pledged to donate 20 percent of the proceeds to Brave Space Alliance, a Black- and trans-led community organization.
Brave Space Alliance said in January that it was "blindsided" by the news a Chick-fil-A location would be opening in the same building as its office. CEO Channyn Lynne Parker told Windy City Times that "we respect the right of businesses to operate, but we also have a responsibility to our community to ensure that they feel safe, valued and supported, and Chick-fil-A’s track record creates a level of understandable apprehension among the people Brave Space Alliance serves.”
The company most notoriously has drawn criticism and boycotts over its millions in donations to various groups with anti-LGBTQ+ ties, including over $1.7 million in 2009 alone. The Chick-fil-A Foundation donated $1.8 million to three anti-LGBTQ organizations in 2017, $1,653,416 going to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which enforces a "sexual purity" policy that bars "homosexual acts."
Chick-fil-A gave another $1.65 million to the FCA and $115,000 to The Salvation Army in 2018, before announcing in 2019 that it would cease its donations to the companies, and that its foundation would only donate to a select few organizations. However, Tim Tassopoulos, president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, said in the announcement that "no organization will be excluded from future consideration — faith-based or non-faith-based."
Chick-fil-A's profits have continued to fund efforts to block the Equality Act, which would update federal laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit, and more. Former CEO Dan Cathy was revealed by The Daily Beast in 2021 to be among several Christian billionaires who gave millions to the National Christian Charitable Foundation (NCF), which has spearheaded the blockage of the Equality Act.
"We took the sandwich and left out the bigotry," Void wrote. "You’re welcome."
