I used to manage a McOPCO (company owned) McDonald's in Florida in the 1980s. Even then, and even in Florida, that policy stood in McOPCO stores. I had employees I knew were GL (I assume B and T as well, my store had a staff of between 60 and 75), and didn't tolerate slurs; I verbally reprimanded more than one employee for using slurs under that policy, and would have escalated to a written warning if needed - it never was.

Bear in mind that policy may not be followed by McD's franchisees - and somewhere around 90% of their locations are franchises. McD's can rigidly enforce food quality and service standards, but they can't enforce the employment policies of individual franchisees very well.

I rarely eat at McDonald's. When you run one for a period of time, you see enough of that food to last you a lifetime, and the only thing on their menu that appeals to me now is an Egg McMuffin and coffee when on the road in the morning. But McD's corp attitude is, probably, that they'll get more business from the AFA blacklisting them, than they'll lose, just as Disney gained more business from the SBC boycott, than they lost.

Fresh off their "successes" (ha ha ha ha ha) with Ford and Disney, the AFA is trying a new trick... the new talking point is that they are asking businesses "to remain neutral in these controversial skirmishes of the culture war."

This, of course, is a carefully thought out strategy that allows them to position the changing attitudes of an increasingly tolerant society as "a war" with the good guys and bad guys. It allows them to make connections between a donation to NGLCC and support for marriage equality (see http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/03/mcdonalds-boycott/).

Of course, there's no need for businesses like Exxon, Coors, or other those poor oppressed Christian business owners being forced to hire the homos to remain neutral.

Alex amazing. In eleven hours after posting utube has pulled the video. It is 10:45 AM in Thailand and I attempted to see the video the first time twenty minutes ago. Like bacteria, do Christian fundamentalists wither in sunlight? How quickly your posting got a reaction. I wonder what the video said?

I agree with the AFA. The McDonald's statement is unfortunate. It currently says "At McDonald's, we treat all our employees and customers with dignity and respect regardless of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or any other differentiating factor."

I doubt if a person who came in who was intent to destroy families they did not approve of, cultures they disagreed with, make it difficult for qualified people to maintain employment and who had a generally unpleasant personality they felt an invisible super buddy required would be welcome. The section on "religious beliefs" needs to go.

Robert~ I can still see the video here! It's actually a mcdonalds commercial talking about how they support SF Pride.

AJ~ I know, that's interesting that they've turned over the the "controversial" rhetoric, showing that they know that they can't win that they're right, so they set the bar a bit lower for themselves and now all they think they need to prove is that the have a point.

Polar~ I worked at a Subway for a long time, but I can still eat there! Oh, wait, I haven't been there in years, so maybe my subconscious is stepping in....

Now it comes up. Strange, It came up "unavailable" when I tried some twelve hours ago. so as stated i waited another 20 minutes. I figured you had hit a gay nerve!

Looks Like I'll be stopping at Mickey D's and grabbing Big Macs more often ;)

Christians have every right not to spend their money at businesses which oppose Christian values.

In 1st Corinthians Paul exhorts Christians to do this very thing.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-mcdonalds-boycott-and-idol-meat/

"Polar~ I worked at a Subway for a long time, but I can still eat there! Oh, wait, I haven't been there in years, so maybe my subconscious is stepping in.."

Subway has a little more variety to the menu. I can eat there 3-4 times per week, and have very different sandwiches each time out. But McD's did away with their best burger (the McDLT), ruined the fries (by switching from beef tallow in the late 1980s, then finishing the job by going no-trans-fats in the 2000s), and ruined their service system by going to cook-to-order. Don't get me started on the salad shakers, concrete breakfast biscuits, or the McLean Deluxe. Until the McGriddles came along, the last successful new product had been the Sausage McMuffin and Big Breakfast - in the early 1970s. My store had the full size salads (their salads are a joke now), McPizza (better than many pizza places, also gone), and McRib at all times (a special item only now).

I know we're not supposed to eat there, because Dave Thomas was a homo/transphobe, but he's dead now, and Wendy's still is the bomb, so far as fast food burgers go. So is Steak n' Shake - the ne plus ultra of 3AM cuisine.

Dave Thomas was a homo/transphobe

What?!?! Say it isn't so!

But speaking of Wendy's - did you hear that they got bought out by Arby's? How low do you have to sink to get bought out by Arby's?

It's strange to be on the same side as the AFA. I don't want anyone to eat at McDonald's either! The obesity causing food, the fact that they strip the rainforest to raise cheap beef, the wholesale slaughter of millions of animals, the over grazing, the price gouging, the marketing to children and the general working conditions are enough to put me off the Mac. I'll just pretend they're protesting clear cutting the rainforest.

Don't their type like to hide out in the shadowy murk of the uncivilized society?

Christians have every right not to spend their money at businesses which oppose Christian values.

When I read the Good Book, D Partlow, the Christian faith I was raised with teaches me that hate was not a christian value, is it a sin.

Bigotry was not a christian value. Bearing false witness against thy neighbor (translation- lying about you fellow human beings) is one of the Ten Commandments.

You conservatives really sicken me the way you have taken Christianity, twisted the meaning of selected scriptures and used it as a white sheet to cover your own prejudices.

Projectors, note that D Partlow starts quoting Paul. That's the unmistakable sign that you're dealing with a right-wing 'christian' because they never read or quote the Beatitudes or what Jesus actually said.

They can't because Jesus didn't condemn homosexuality or transsexuality, they know it, and it would ruin their efforts to use the Bible as a weapon against GLBT people and progressive people if more folks knew that.

While you peeps are building a bridge to the 17th century, the rest of us in the 21st century are working to build an America and a world that works for everybody, not just racist, power-tripping bigoted white males and their sellout minority acolytes with repressed sexual shame and guilt issues.

Polar, one day after I wrote that I went to a Subway, completely unrelated since it was someone else's idea. So there we go.

It hasn't changed hardly at all all these years, and it was one in France. I was surprised it was so similar to an American Subway while McD's is so different over here. I guess Subway has more international appeal the way it is.