WASHINGTON – In a series of tweets Wednesday, South Carolina’s Republican senior U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham wrote; “I hope we don’t have to, but I will go to war for the principles Chick-Fil-A stands for.”

The controversy that provoked Graham’s ire was the news that University of Notre Dame students and faculty signed an open letter calling on the university’s Campus Dining division to nix a proposed Chick fil-A on the campus of the 178 year old private Catholic research university.

This fight over the chicken sandwich fast food company’s proposed outlet at University of Notre Dame du Lac is just the latest skirmish in a decade plus long running cultural war battle over the company’s founding family’s support of anti-LGBTQ groups, some designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, for lies and malicious propaganda attacking LGBTQ+ Americans.

In an Instagram post on May 12, the university’s Campus Dining division disputed a purported claim by the Chick fil-A that the company would be opening an on campus outlet.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Notre Dame Campus Dining (@ndcampusdining)

The resulting open letter followed an op-ed in The Observer, on July 1 in the student-run, daily print and online newspaper serving Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross.

“Our first concern relates to Chick-fil-A’s long history of antagonism toward the LGBTQ+ community. Over the past two decades, Chick-fil-A has donated significant sums to groups that oppose LGBTQ+ rights. From 2003 to 2012, the restaurant’s charitable arm gave over $5 million to queerphobic groups, including groups supporting conversion therapy. Despite public outcry and promises to halt anti-LGBTQ+ donations, in 2017, the donations to anti-LGBTQ+ organizations resumed, including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and the Salvation Army,” the op-ed states. 

The brewing fight over Chick-fil-A caught the attention of a right-wing news letter and blogsite, ‘Campus Reform,’ which defines itself; “As a conservative watchdog to the nation’s higher education system, Campus Reform exposes liberal bias and abuse on the nation’s college campuses. Our team of professional journalists works alongside student activists and student journalists to report on the conduct and misconduct of campus administrators, faculty, and students.”

This past April, independent journalists at The Intercept wrote an in-depth piece on Campus Reform and its financial backers noting that Campus Reform is emblematic of the raging battle in American public discourse over so-called cancel culture, which the site’s writers have regularly lamented even as they set out to cancel the reputations and jobs of the people they attack. 

This so-called expose on Notre Dame’s Chick-fil-A conflict was then in turn was then given additional signal boost by right-wing media giant Fox News on July 13 based on the Campus Reform Coverage.

Enter Senator Graham in a series of tweets defending the chicken sandwich outlets empire.

I want everyone in South Carolina and across America to know I have Chick fil-A’s back.

I hope we don’t have to, but I will go to war for the principles Chick fil-A stands for.

Great food.
Great service.
Great values.

God bless Chick fil-A!

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 14, 2021

On May 21 of 2019, YouTube Food Channel Mashed covered the decade long battle over the chicken sandwich chain.

Why Chick-Fil-A Really Keeps Getting Banned From Places

HILLSBOROUGH TOWNSHIP, NJ – The Republican nominee in the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, has vowed to roll back LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum in the Garden State’s primary and secondary public schools.

In a video at a campaign appearance last month, Ciattarelli is heard telling the crowd gathered at the Tactical Training Center gun store in Flemington; “I feel lucky [our kids] They’re about 20 years old and I don’t have to deal with what you’re dealing with right now. When I’m governor you won’t have to deal with it, but we don’t teach gender ID and sexual orientation to kindergartens. In the sixth grade we don’t teach sodomy. And we’re going to push back on the LGBTQ curriculum. It goes too far. ”

Ciattarelli also complained about a poster he told the crowd he had recently seen at a local bank announcing a new LGBTQ bank card. “I’m sitting there saying,” he said. “The more special we respond to each interest, the more you remind us how different we are from each other. ’No?”

NJ GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli discusses NJ’s LGTBQ curriculum via Gothamist:

Christian Fuscarino, the executive director of Garden State Equality, said Ciattarelli’s use of the word “sodomy” sounded as if it were “speaking to a specific group of people in code or signaling virtues.” Fuscarino added: “He says more clearly that he wants to reverse some of the progress the LGBTQ community has made. We’ve seen enough of that at the federal level over the last four years with the Trump administration.”

New Jersey in 2019 became the second state in the nation after California to adopt a law that requires schools to teach about LGBTQ history in a move hailed by civil rights groups as a step toward inclusion and fairness.

In New Jersey, there are now laws to address sexual orientation and schooling. There are also requirements to provide information on diversity and inclusion, including gender and sexual orientation. While the law requires LGBTQ inclusive curriculum, administration and oversight is at the discretion of the individual school districts to determine how it is implemented.

The law has provisions for instruction for all of the state’s high school students that explains “the political, economic, and social contributions of people with disabilities and lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people.” This is intended to reduce the bullying suffered by LGBTQ students and those with LGBTQ parents in schools.

By teaching about lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual communities in schools, students will feel more connected, which will help their mental health and ability to learn, Kathryn Dixon, Northern New Jersey policy coordinator for GLSEN told the New Jersey Star-Ledger in an interview in 2019 after the law was signed by Democratic Governor Phil Murphy. “It fosters respect and connectivity and develops a culture and climate where everyone feels safe,” she said.

The lessons shouldn’t be confined to the history of the gay rights movement, Dixon added. Rather, schools should also include everyday examples of LGBT individuals and families across subjects. 

Political non-partisan website Insider NJ noted this past spring that “Assemblyman Ciattarelli has a history of embracing Trumpian far-right ideology, including maskless gladhanding, a featured speaking role at a “Stop the Steal” rally, and Jim Crow-era voter disenfranchisement.”

WASHINGTON – Republican Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has promoted baseless QAnon conspiracy theories and has a standing record of demonization and hateful abusive comments directed towards LGBTQ people, attacked a Trans couple raising a child featured on Courteney Cox’s reality show.

In a retweet Tuesday afternoon of  Liz Joy, a fellow Republican who is challenging Democratic U.S. Representative Paul Tonko in New York State’s 20th Congressional District in the 2022 election, Greene launched into a hateful transphobic rant claiming, “This is CHILD ABUSE!!!!! This baby is in danger! Remove this child immediately. Caring for and raising children should have nothing, absolutely NOTHING, to do with fulfilling this man’s unnatural fantasies. Men can NOT give birth or breast feed. They are mentally unstable.”

What set Greene off was a June episode from Season 3 of 9 Months With Courteney Cox, which featured Trans couple Ahanu and Petrona. Ahanu is transmasculine and carried the child, and Petrona is a trans woman. In the episode Petrona was attempting to breastfeed the baby and being frustrated when she could not; the child is being fed with formula.

The Advocate’s Trudy Ring pointed out that Trans women are sometimes capable of breastfeeding through use of hormones or other medications to induce lactation. A recent study noted successful induced lactation in a trans woman.

Ring also noted that a certain level of female hormones can also produce lactation.

Greene has an established record of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and transphobia. Earlier this year in February, she hung a transphobic sign outside her office in response to Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) raising a transgender pride flag across the hallway in front of Newman’s congressional office suite to honor her daughter, Evie Newman, who is Trans. “There are TWO genders: Male & Female. Trust The Science!” –Greene’s sign read.

During the same time period, Greene launched a series of Twitter attacks and a floor speech in opposition to the Equality Act which was being debated for passage in the U.S. House.

After the debate, Newman tweeted a video of herself putting out the flag. She wrote: “Our neighbour, @RepMTG, tried to block the Equality Act because she believes prohibiting discrimination against trans Americans is ‘disgusting, immoral, and evil.’ Thought we’d put up our Transgender flag so she can look at it every time she opens her door.”

Greene tweeted in response: “Our neighbour, @RepMarieNewman, wants to pass the so-called ‘Equality’ Act to destroy women’s rights and religious freedoms. Thought we’d put up ours so she can look at it every time she opens her door.”

Greene has previously said, “Teaching racism and promoting sex, homosexuality, & normalizing transgender to children is mental/emotional child abuse.” She also attacked Republican Caitlyn Jenner, who is in a long-shot campaign to replace Democrat Gavin Newsom as governor of California in the recall election. “Stop promoting this man in a dress,” she tweeted.