Chick-fil-A CEO Andrew Cathy repeatedly declined to say where the company stands on LGBTQ rights during a Wednesday interview on NBC’s “Today,” drawing criticism from celebrities including Katie Couric and Valerie Bertinelli.
Host Craig Melvin asked Mr. Cathy what he would tell protesters who say Chick-fil-A does not stand with the LGBTQ+ community. Mr. Cathy invited anyone who hasn’t tried the chain to sample its food and hospitality.
Mr. Melvin pressed, asking whether Mr. Cathy didn’t want to talk about “that chapter in Chick-fil-A’s history.” Mr. Cathy said the company is focused on serving everyone who eats there. Asked a third time for the company’s official position on equal rights, he said Chick-fil-A is “focused on hospitality.”
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Entertainment Weekly reported that stars flooded the show’s Instagram post about the interview. Ms. Couric called it a “non answer answer” and said a good follow-up would have been asking whether Mr. Cathy agrees with his father. Ms. Bertinelli wrote that she has “never tried Chik [sic]” and has “no plans to change that.” Comedian Ross Mathews said Mr. Cathy was “too chicken to answer directly,” and Chelsea Handler wrote, “No thank you.”
The question traces to 2012, when Dan Cathy, Andrew Cathy’s father, set off protests after telling the Baptist Press that the company was “very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.” Andrew Cathy succeeded his father as CEO on Nov. 1, 2021. Dan Cathy remained chairman.
In 2019, Chick-fil-A announced it would end charitable partnerships with three organizations that had drawn criticism over their positions on homosexuality and same-sex marriage, shifting its giving toward hunger, homelessness and education. “This decision was made to create more clarity,” the company said in a statement. The company declined at the time to say whether it would weigh a group’s position on gay rights in future giving, according to the Associated Press.
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