Nearly a decade after Chick-fil-A was called out for donating to anti-LGBTQ+ groups, its owner is still funding efforts to discriminate against the community.
According to a new report from The Daily Beast, an organization called the National Christian Charitable Foundation (NCF) is bankrolling many of the groups hoping to kill the Equality Act. If signed into law, the landmark legislation would mandate equal protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in all walks of life, including health care, housing, education, and public accommodations.
As the nation’s sixth-largest charity, the NCF has reportedly been helping to push anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in over 30 states this year. These include efforts to ban transgender student-athletes from competing in school sports in accordance with their sense of self and block trans youth from receiving life-saving transition care.
The NCF is a “donor-advised fund,” meaning that individuals can suggest where they’d like their money to go. In turn, the NCF gives money to groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the conservative lobby group that has authored many of the state-level bills discriminating against trans youth, and the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that is one the main players trying to defeat the Equality Act.
The NCF gave $6,585,923 to the ADF in 2018, according to its Form 990 from that year. Since its founding in the 1980s, NCF has granted funds to 63,000 non-profits, including the Heritage Foundation.
A tax analyst who asked to remain anonymous told the Beast that the NCF is among “the most sophisticated dark money operations” they had ever seen.“They’re doing hardcore, extreme stuff, but they make it seem like it’s a bunch of soup kitchens,” the unnamed individual said in the Wednesday report.
Major donors to the NCF include conservative power players like the family of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s former Secretary of Education, and Hobby Lobby. A longtime right-wing activist, DeVos’ relatives reportedly donated to efforts to ban marriage equality in states like Michigan in 2004 and California in 2008, the latter of which was initially successful before the ballot initiative was overturned in court.
Also atop the list, as the Beast reports, is Chick-fil-A owner Dan Cathy.
Chick-fil-A has promised multiple times over the years to stop donating to anti-LGBTQ+ causes. In 2012, the fast-food chain came under fire for giving money to the since disbanded ex-gay group Exodus International, as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Family Research Council (FRC). The FRC is a staunch advocate for the debunked practice of conversion therapy, and its president, Tony Perkins, has likened homosexuality to drug addiction and adultery.
When those donations were called out, Cathay confirmed that the company was dedicated to the “the biblical definition of the family unit.” “We intend to stay the course,” he told the Biblical Reporter at the time. “We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”
In 2019, the company sought to move on from the controversy by announcing that it would cease its ongoing donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, both of which have come under fire for their anti-LGBTQ+ track records. In a press release, the Chick-fil-A Foundation confirmed that it wanted to “deepen its giving to a smaller number of organizations working exclusively in the areas of education, homelessness and hunger.”
The business itself may have ceased anti-LGBTQ+ donations, but its owner clearly has not.
Cathy’s quiet lobbying campaign behind the scenes appears to have had an outsize political impact. Despite the fact that over 75% of Americans support the Equality Act, the landmark legislation has struggled to pass the Senate after prominent Republicans like Utah’s Mitt Romney and Maine’s Susan Collins came out against it. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin has reportedly said in private that he cannot support the bill because phone calls from constituents are “a thousand to one” against it.
Meanwhile, seven states have signed laws restricting the participation of trans students in sports into law this year, including Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and West Virginia. Two of those states, Arkansas and [Tennessee](https://www.them.us/story/tennessee-will-limit-gender-affirming-care-some-trans-youth), also approved legislation limiting the medical care that can be offered to trans youth, although Tennessee’s is fairly limited in its scope.
Cathy has yet to comment publicly on the reports.
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