Chick-fil-A wants to cross the pond — but we’re telling them to cluck off.

The notoriously anti-LGBT+ fast-food giant is trying once again to crack the UK market. This year, under a veil of secrecy, it is preparing test openings in Leeds, Liverpool, and beyond. But British activists, led by the Peter Tatchell Foundation, are on the case. We’re standing up — and speaking out — against a company that has served up decades of chicken, fries, and discrimination. 

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about chicken. It’s about Chick-fil-A’s foul history of funding organizations that defend abusive conversion practices and that oppose same-sex marriage, trans rights and laws to protect LGBTs against discrimination. These include donations to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Focus on the Family, and the National Christian Charitable Foundation. Although the company promised in 2019 to stop donating to anti-LGBT+ groups, the company’s leadership has since left the door open to future funding of anti-LGBT+ initiatives. When pressed, its president admitted that “no organization will be excluded from future consideration.”  

This year, we wrote to Chick-fil-A via their UK public relations firm, Lexington Communications, in London. All we received was old hat promises that they ceased funding anti-LGBT+ groups in 2019. They evaded the more pertinent questions: Are you funding them now and will you fund them in the future? 

This refusal to give cast-iron guarantees that the company won’t go back to its old ways arouses suspicions.

When Chick-fil-A first tested the UK market in 2019, their Reading pop-up restaurant lasted barely a week before protests, petitions and public pressure drove them out. The message was clear: your values don’t fly here.

Now, they’re trying again — with more PR gloss, but the same bitter aftertaste.

This isn’t cancel culture — it’s consequence culture. We’re holding them to account for homophobic funding that they chose to make. A company that’s poured millions into groups pushing conversion therapy and anti-trans legislation doesn’t get to wrap itself in rainbow logos and call it progress. That’s not reform — it’s cynical rebranding. If Chick-fil-A wants our business, it needs to prove it’s changed — not just its menu, but its mindset.

British consumers don’t want bigotry served with southern hospitality. We want transparency, inclusivity and companies that don’t bankroll hate. So far, Chick-fil-A has offered none of that — just slick slogans and vague platitudes. No amount of chicken sandwiches can make up for a side order of homophobia.

And to our American friends: we know many of you love the food. But ask yourselves — what exactly are you biting into? It’s not ‘just a sandwich’ when the profits prop up prejudice.

This campaign isn’t about being “woke” — it’s about being awake. Awake to the power of LGBT+ consumers and allies to demand better. Awake to the harm caused when companies use their profits to divide, not unite. And awake to the fact that when Chick-fil-A expands, so does its influence.

So, we say again, loud and proud: Cluck off, Chick-fil-A. Until you give us rock solid assurances that you will never again fund organizations, individuals and campaigns that undermine LGBT+ human rights, there’s no room for you in the UK — or anywhere that values respect, dignity, and equality.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser made bringing the Commanders back to D.C. her goal since she became mayor 10 years ago. With a 9-3 win on the Council’s first vote, that goal is now in sight. But the mayor put together a deal with the new owners of the Commanders that is more than a new stadium. It is the development of 180 acres the mayor had transferred to D.C. from Congress after much hard work. It is a domed stadium, housing (including affordable housing), green spaces, parks, a sportsplex for the children of D.C., a hotel, and a new supermarket for the people of Ward 7, and more. There will be more adjustments to the legislation, then a second vote in September. When that passes, and it will, and the mayor signs the legislation, it goes to the Hill for a 30-day review. This will be a huge win for all the people of D.C. 

The passage of this legislation will mean thousands of construction jobs, many of them union jobs, and permanent jobs for D.C. residents, all on land that has been lying fallow for years. Step one will be the demolition of the old rusting RFK Stadium. All this will happen because of a singular focus by the mayor, working with Congress to get the land, and then dealing with the City Council, to get it over the finish line. 

Some will say the final deal is different than the original one the mayor and the team negotiated. They knew when it was presented to the Council that there isn’t a politician who doesn’t want their stamp on a deal like this. They want the right to claim they added something, and they did. Good for them. Thank you to Council Chair Phil Mendelson, and Council member Kenyan McDuffie (at-large), for leading the negotiations. The changes are good. It was interesting to watch the D.C. Council as it debated the iteration of the RFK legislation for their first vote. There was Robert White (at-large), who was clearly trying to speak to those he hoped would eventually elect him mayor, as he introduced his four amendments. He was the only member to introduce amendments. Three were voted down and one withdrawn. The other two no votes, Nadeau (Ward 1) and Frumin (Ward 3), should be defeated when they are next up for reelection, as they clearly don’t understand the future economy of the District. 

The majority on the Council understood the total budget, including the RFK site legislation, sent to them by the mayor, came to grips with the changing economy and the fact less money is being collected from existing sources — some as a result of the felon firing thousands of federal workers, causing countless downtown businesses to suffer, or close. This compounded the issue of downtown office buildings standing partially empty since the pandemic. They came up with some compromises including how to deal with Initiative 82, the minimum wage for tipped workers. On initiative 83, ranked choice voting, and open primaries, they funded ranked choice voting, but not open primaries. They are still dealing with the RENTAL act the Mayor sent them. Despite amendments, the bulk of the budget the mayor sent to the Council is intact.  

The mayor was clear: her budget proposal and RFK site development legislation, are based on D.C. having to relook at its long-term economic outlook. How will the city raise enough revenue to fund the programs needed by the poor and low-income residents? How will the city fund Medicaid, SNAP, and so many others programs like housing vouchers? Or find the funds to continue to pay for schools, police, fire, and all other basic services? There is a limit to how much you can raise taxes on the wealthy without seeing them leave the District. The mayor has rightly looked at sports as one way to bring more revenue to the district. Fans who buy tickets eat in our restaurants, stay in our hotels, spend money in our shops. Millions come out to our major sports arenas. We have seen what a catalyst Nationals Stadium was for the surrounding area, Capital Center for downtown, and Audi field where it is located. That is what the new stadium, and the other plans for the 180-acre RFK site, will do for that area. The domed stadium allows for much more than just football. It will host concerts, conventions, and other special events. If it weren’t for the excitement around the proposed new stadium, D.C. wouldn’t be hosting the 2027 NFL draft, which will bring a million people to D.C. and fill hotels and restaurants for four days. D.C. will finally have a venue for a Beyoncé or Taylor Swift concert. There will be a Super Bowl in the District’s future. I am confident the majority of the Council recognizes all this, as they move from the half-yard line, to a touchdown, with their second vote. 

Then, the focus will change to holding the District government, and the team, to the commitments they have made. Five years from now, in 2030, when the first Commanders’ game is played in a new domed stadium, and there is building on the rest of the site, there will be a lot of cheering.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

A seashore is a boundary not only between land and sea, but between the world we know and another one holding many mysteries. Magical things can happen in such a place.

It helps to be away from our normal preoccupations, but any place or moment can open a door into a different world.

I often go to my roof in the evening with a glass of wine to relax and stare at the sky. For a pleasant hour I stop worrying about the destruction of my country and let my mind wander. Half-forgotten memories can well up. Sometimes I just listen to the cheers rising from a nearby soccer field.

Time is not linear in our minds. A friend who died 32 years ago feels as present to me as if he were sitting across from me chatting over drinks as we did long ago. Though I have grown old as he did not, his spirit lifts me and reminds me of our shared devotion to causes greater than ourselves.

Imagining alternate timelines reminds us that individual choices can change things, for good or ill.

The other day I found an email saying I had won millions in a sweepstakes. I am wary of scams and did not follow the link. Nonetheless, I felt its gravitational pull. Millions of dollars would be nice. My favorite director sitting next to me on a plane would be nice. Mad tyrants disappearing through wormholes would be nice.

“A wormhole,” according to Wikipedia, “is a hypothetical structure that connects disparate points in spacetime.” In literary terms, a wormhole is like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland or the twister in The Wizard of Oz. It’s a magical portal between worlds.

The nice thing about a wormhole, at least a fictional one, is that you can go through it, have a lovely adventure, and get back in time for breakfast.

I do not want our mad tyrant to get back. I want the portal to vanish behind him, as with the Bermuda Triangle, where you fly into it and are never heard from again.

Sometimes I feel that I fell asleep when Joe Biden was president, and woke up in a dystopian novel with a deranged dictator tearing the country apart.

Some people insist they’re not political. If they can sustain that fantasy, they’re lucky. For many of us, just walking out our front door and expecting to be treated like an equal human being is a political act.

Still, I understand. We don’t always want to deal with politics. We just want to go about our business. I bet the people being grabbed in the street by masked ICE police and carted off to internment camps would also like to go about their business.

Occasionally a nation goes to sleep and demons work their mischief. Our best prospect may be for the demons to devour one another, which they are beginning to do.

Social media can be a wormhole into a dark place. I broke away from the platform formerly known as Twitter a year ago after Elon Musk turned it into a spigot of disinformation. At some point, I may try another platform. For now, I need my time staring at the sky.

Sometimes, though, I choose a restaurant instead of my roof to benefit from the skills of a mixologist. At my local Thai restaurant I like to order a Flaming Typhoon, which consists of rum and tropical juices with a little lemon rind boat on top filled with rum the bartender lights on fire. I almost hate blowing out the flame and drinking it. It would be disrespectful to the mixologist, however, to sit there entranced without tasting her handiwork.

Anything exquisite, like a meal or a work of art, can transport us. If I ordered enough Flaming Typhoons, who knows what magical realm they would carry me off to.

But as much as we need escape, it is important to keep our underlying grip on reality. Just because a fictional character can fly or walk on water does not mean we should try it ourselves.

I need a few hours or perhaps weeks of peace, not eternal peace. That will come soon enough. While I am here I am eager to embrace life, including by marrying the man I love. That is a promise I intend to keep here in this imperfect world, before someone else tries to reduce me to a bit character in his own warped fantasy.

Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].