I was shocked when I saw a Huffington Post piece titled, "Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A." I clicked the link and immediately looked for the byline to see it was written by Shane L. Windmeyer, who bills himself as a "nationally recognized LGBT leader in higher education; bestselling author; executive director, Campus Pride."
I'd never heard of him but I was familiar with Campus Pride. I knew the group was one of the first to call for a boycott of Chick-fil-A last summer after news of the company's huge donations to the most hateful and politically active anti-gay groups went public, and after some anti-equality comments by Cathy. Some of us had been boycotting Chick-fil-A for years due to the company's support of anti-gay causes, but the whole community was ready to get on board with a very loud, very public boycott against the company.
As a group, Campus Pride was uniquely suited for the job. Chick-fil-A has been trying to expand its brand by opening stores on college campuses, which can be lucrative markets for fast-food companies. As an organization with deep ties throughout the higher education community, few, if any, other national LGBT groups had the connections and access Campus Pride could bring to bear on the effort; the group had enough power to put a significant dent in Chick-fil-A's bottom line by killing new stores on campuses. It was the LGBT activist community's collective wet dream.
As is hoped for with grassroots activism, our community and allies all got on board with the boycott, and it became a huge national media story. In an era when more and more average Americans are accepting and even advocating equal rights for us, an amazing number of straight people who have probably never given LGBT rights a moment's consideration in the past joined the effort, using Facebook and other social media to promote the boycott. It was a great example of activism at work, at least in the beginning.
News came in September that Campus Pride was temporarily "suspending" the boycott. Windmeyer had met with executives from Chick-fil-A at least twice, and felt there was enough common ground to suspend his group's boycott. LGBT activists around the country shook their heads in disbelief, wondering what exactly was going on at Campus Pride.
I wasn't too worried about their September announcement. As a successful grassroots campaign, it had grown far beyond the boundaries of the Campus Pride boardroom, and their call to suspend was unlikely to have much impact. That Cathy was reaching out to the group was proof enough that the boycott was working. But I was annoyed Campus Pride was giving in so easily, and I couldn't understand why they did it based on a couple of meetings.
Windmeyer's column solved the mystery. Apparently he and Cathy spent the last few months nurturing a budding bromance. Windmeyer writes of long conversations, intimate texts and a new-found mutual respect. He says the two try to listen to and hear each other, and that they share kindness, openness and trust. He tries to convince us that Cathy is Jesus Christ himself.
He also confesses that he was Cathy's personal guest at the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta on New Year's Eve. He says the company showed him its 2011 IRS 990 from their WinShape Foundation, and it showed no donations to "… the most divisive anti-LGBT groups … ." Based on his secret peek at one form, Campus Pride called for an end to the Chick-fil-A boycott via Windmeyer's column. And based on his column, national media outlets ran with the story that the LGBT community's Chick-fil-A boycott was over.
I'm glad the two have developed a relationship and seem to be really trying to understand each other. I truly believe dialogue is the first step towards understanding, and maybe, in time, Windmeyer can have a real impact on Cathy. That would be great, and I hope he can. But Windmeyer has severely and tragically miscalculated the situation.
This isn't about a feud between the head of Campus Pride and the head of Chick-fil-A, and it's not about getting the homophobic head of a fast food chain to like us. It's about the incredibly important principle that granting equal rights to LGBTs does not equate with suppressing the religious freedom of those who oppose our rights. It's about decades of active work against us, and millions of dollars in donations to those who would kill our brothers and sisters. It's about every gay employee and customer of Chick-fil-A, present and past, who suffered discrimination and humiliation in the name of religious freedom, and then had their hard earned money given to the very people who fight against our rights to be full citizens of this country.
Windmeyer cites the 990 form, and the company's promise to treat LGBT people with dignity, as reasons to cancel a boycott. I can't say what Cathy's motives are, but it's hard to ignore the financial incentives for him to want to scrub his company of any proof of hate. Maybe he can put an end to the boycott and all the negative publicity, maybe he can open more stores on college campuses, and maybe he can avoid fights with Chicago and other cities with anti-discrimination policies.
What about the hate his company has funded and actively promoted for years? What about all the damage that's already been caused by his "Christian" work? What about the employees who've been hurt? If we start spending our money at Cathy's restaurant, who's to say he and his family are not using those proceeds to contribute privately to the worst of the hate groups? Or any hate groups? History tells us they will.
Campus Pride may have been the catalyst that ignited the full-scale boycott, but neither the group nor Windmeyer have the power to simply wave a wand and stop it. In calling for an end to the boycott based on a peek of a document nobody else can verify, and a presumably free junket to a college football game, Windmeyer did incredible damage to the community.
National news outlets have already announced the boycott is over. While the community clearly doesn't support Windmeyer's command, those who don't pay as much attention to our plight think it's over. Those average Americans who summoned their best righteous indignation to join our fight for equality, many for the first time, likely read the news, jumped in their cars and sped to the nearest Chick-fil-A. That could take months to undo, if it can be undone at all. He simply handed Cathy the victory in the PR battle which, when it comes to boycotts, is the most important battle of all.
Windmeyer also made the entire LGBT activist community look like a bunch of idiots. I think of The Castro and Stonewall and ACT UP, and what those men and women sacrificed to save our community. They fought for years, and are still fighting today, to achieve their goals. Many died. But Windmeyer assumes to decide for us all that we can't even sacrifice a chicken sandwich to achieve true, full equality.
What do his actions say to young activists? If the opposition throws you an irrelevant bone, you should take it and roll over. He clearly doesn't get it, and ends the column by asking: "So long as we are all at the same table and talking, does it matter what we call it or what we eat?" Um … yeah, it kinda does matter what we eat when the issue at hand is a fast-food boycott. WTF?
I don't know who made Shane Windmeyer the official spokesman for the LGBT community. He showed extremely poor judgment in handling this situation, and he's done significant damage to his reputation Campus Pride's. Protesting in the name of LGBT equality is a team sport, not a solo effort. As a community, we learned that lesson when Harvey Milk took a bullet for us in 1978. I'm glad Windmeyer's made a new friend, but I'm still boycotting hate chicken.
Doug Allen lives in Aspen, Colorado, and is a columnist for the Aspen Daily News and freelance reporter for Aspen Public Radio. His work has appeared in Positively Aware, POZ, Gay Chicago Magazine, Lesbigay Radio Chicago and The Washington Post, among others.
