I’ve been boycotting the fast-food chain Wendy’s for about three years now for my belief that Wendy’s discriminates against homosexuals in their hiring practices.
However, I’ve been mulling it over for a few days now, and starting to become concerned. My evidence for Wendy’s practices are based on stories my girlfriend has heard. I haven’t heard anything from a major news source on the matter, nothing from my activist friends, and I’m wondering if the stories my GF heard had more to do with growing up in conservative Carrol County than with Wendy’s per se.
So, the question I have- has anyone else heard of Wendy’s being discriminatory in hiring homosexuals, or have I been denying myself Biggie fries for the last 36 months on the basis of little more than UL?
I don’t really follow the issue much, so I may be mistaken…but I think the practice of gay rights’ activists boycotting Wendy’s began when Wendy’s pulled its advertising from the sitcom Ellen, after Ellen Degeneres announced she was gay.
Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas, has long been known to support extremely conservative causes… he gives quite a lot of money to reactionary republicans and the Christian Coalition.
Hey, look, being a conservative Republican doesn’t mean I don’t believe in equal rights for all Americans regardless of sexual practice between consenting adults. It just means I’m more interested in seeing action come from community consensus and hitting offenders in their pocketbooks through boycotts and consumer choices rather than invoking the federal government.
Dave Thomas has every right to speak against homosexuality and to have a practice of not hiring homosexuals- First Amendment, freedom of speech and of assembly. But his freedom to speak comes with the responsibility of accepting the consequences of his speech, which is getting less business from people who think he’s doing/saying the wrong thing. I don’t agree with what he says or does, and I will not put money in his pocket.
(Or were you saying “of all people, you?” in response to the thought that I might have been ignorantly following an UL? If so, I can only shuffle my feet and be embarassed at not investigating this earlier.)
andygirl- thanks for the links and the info! I greatly appreciate it. I may now eat my Big Mac with smug superiority. Though I’m now annoyed to find that I’ll have to stay away from Red Lobster as well. Sigh. Oh, well; guess I’ll get my crab legs somewhere else.
Of course, one of the problems with saying that a particular chain is homophobic is that… well, it’s not like we’re talking a single work place with a small staff. It’s a big leap to say that a manager in one particular store fired someone because they were gay to saying that the whole chain is homophobic. One store might have a bunch of phobes working there, another might be queer as a football bat. You can’t standardize something like that. I think that you can only really determine if a chain is homophobic or racist or what have you by examining their corporate policies and the way they react to incidents.
I wouldn’t call it a rumor of homophobia from Dave Thomas, though- the gay press has quoted him as being homophobic, and if I dug around my back issues of the advocate I’m sure I could find some articles regarding Wendy’s (or at least the founder’s) homophobia.
I was just going to say what andygirl said. Wendy’s is a franchise, which can be bought by just about anyone. The hiring practices of one Wendy’s are not necessarily those of all Wendy’s, except for the standards that must be met to keep the franchise. I seriously doubt the Wendy’s corporation has any policies in place wrt not hiring homosexuals, unless they are those equal opportunity policies that discourage lawsuits - even if Thomas himself is homophobic.
Not that I am one to stick up for corporate types - even if they do make funny somewhat self-depricating commercials and their establishment a bitchin’ spicy chicken sandwich - but I also want some positives to be known here.
Dave Thomas has also spent many millions of dollars to help children, including funding a small but influential law school in Columbus, OH pretty much dedicated to child advocacy.
Much like a Shakespearean villain, Dave Thomas (and really, most people as well) is not the totally evil scumbag some would like to paint him as being.
*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Six months, one week, three days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 41 seconds.
7727 cigarettes not smoked, saving $965.89.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 55 minutes.
Has been known by who? I’ve never seen him advertise his political beliefs. And aren’t Wendy’s restaurants operating as individually owned franchises?
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According to your cite both JC Penny and Wendy’s both claim that they didn’t have a commercial scheduled for that week. It doesn’t sound like they pulled advertisement from anything. In fact it was Chrysler who pulled their ad from the infamous Ellen episode.
