IFI Joins Multi-Group Press Conference to Address McDonalds’ Selective “Diversity” Policy
The McDonald’s Corporation has recently joined and contributed $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, a radical homosexual activist organization working toward homosexual “marriage.” In so doing, McDonald’s has taken a public position on a very divisive issue– a position with which the majority of Americans disagree.
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) believes that McDonald’s vigorous support of the NGLCC undermines essential societal institutions– particularly, the natural family– while violating the deeply held convictions of many. Through both funding and corporate policies, McDonald’s affirms and supports radical and culturally divisive anti-family principles.
In a recent letter, McDonald’s “Global Chief Diversity Officer,” Pat Harris, wrote that, “We have a well-established and proud heritage of associating with individuals and organizations that share in the belief that every person has the right to live and work in their community free of discrimination.”If Ms. Harris means that those who identify as homosexual should be able to live and work without harassment, we’re in complete agreement. No one should be harassed anywhere anytime.
Unfortunately, IFI is well aware that organizations committed to homosexual activism believe that “free from discrimination” means free from cultural disapproval. By supporting the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), McDonald’s supports their efforts to render it socially unacceptable and illegal to express publicly one’s convictions about what constitutes moral sexual behavior. The NGLCC, and evidently McDonald’s, seek to silence all expressions of moral disapproval of homosexual conduct.
In a written response, McDonald’s Customer Response Center spokesperson wrote, “We believe that by embracing our differences we are better enabled to value and respect other people as well as understand differing points of view.”
“Ironically, McDonald’s ‘diversity’ policy leaves people of faith and traditional values out in the cold,” said IFI Executive Director David E. Smith. “I have to wonder if McDonald’s view of ‘diversity’ will also extend its embrace to other groups, such as bisexuals and polygamists. If sexual behavior is the only qualification — why not include these groups too? One would hope that McDonald’s would serve the needs of their customers irrespective of their behaviors-sexual or otherwise.”
Moreover, does McDonald’s embrace the differences that distinguish Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Evangelical Protestants? If so, how does this embrace manifest? In order to honor their commitment to diversity and inclusion, and to better value and respect the differing viewpoints of diverse groups, will McDonald’s embrace the differences that distinguish these groups?
What the global diversity officers at McDonald’s fail to understand is that by embracing the philosophical commitments of the LGBTQ community, they repudiate the philosophical commitments of Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox Church, and many Protestant denominations. The diversity officers don’t seem to grasp the simple truism that no individual or organization can “embrace” mutually opposing principles. It is a logical impossibility.
IFI believes that those who self-identify as homosexual have a right to live and work in their communities free from harassment. IFI believes that those who self-identify as homosexuals are equal in dignity and worth to heterosexuals. But IFI believes that homosexual conduct is immoral, unsafe, and destructive to individual lives and society. IFI expects that McDonald’s, as a business enterprise, would refrain from taking positions on arguable, divisive cultural issues. The solution should be obvious: conduct business and leave the transformation of public sentiments on controversial moral issues to others.
Just as every human has a right to live and work free from harassment, every human has a right to hold and articulate beliefs about which behaviors, sexual and otherwise, constitute moral behaviors. McDonald’s can ensure a workplace free from harassment without supporting organizations whose central mission is not to end harassment but to impose radical socio-political views on America through demagoguery, judicial tyranny, rhetorical manipulation, and censorship.
As long as McDonald’s affirms the destructive deceit that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality, IFI will support the AFA boycott of McDonald’s.