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Chick-fil-A Thrust Back Into Spotlight on Gay Rights

ATLANTA — A Southern-fried chicken sandwich on a soft white bun with a couple of pickle slices is fast becoming the culinary symbol of one of the country’s major social issues.

The Baptist family that owns Chick-fil-A, a fast-food chain based in Atlanta, has for years given millions of dollars to organizations fighting same-sex marriage and supporting heterosexual ones.

Small protests against its position have swelled and receded over the past couple of years, but recently the battle has spilled into the halls of city governments and the presidential campaign. Even the Muppets are involved.

The latest uproar began this month when Dan T. Cathy, whose deeply religious father, S. Truett Cathy, started the company in 1967, told a Christian news organization that Chick-fil-A supported “the biblical definition of the family unit.”

Mr. Cathy, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said later in a radio interview, “As it relates to society in general, I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’ “

The statements, which prompted groups like the National Organization for Marriage to call Mr. Cathy a corporate hero, echo an ethos the company has never hidden.

In early 2011, a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Pennsylvania donated food to a marriage seminar conducted by one of that state’s most outspoken groups against homosexuality. Advocates on both sides weighed in, and students at some universities began trying to get the chain removed from campuses.

Equality Matters, an online investigative organization dedicated to gay and lesbian issues, last year obtained tax records that showed that the company’s operators, its WinShape Foundation and the Cathy family had given millions of dollars to groups whose work includes defeating same-sex marriage initiatives and providing therapy intended to change people’s sexual orientation.

So Mr. Cathy’s statements might have passed without much notice except that Carly McGehee, a New Yorker, decided to stage a same-sex kiss-in on Aug. 3, urging gays and lesbians to show up at the company’s 1,600 restaurants around the country in protest.

That moved Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to declare Aug. 1 as Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. His call to action, which he posted on Facebook last week, garnered such a response that it tripped the site’s spam filters, and the page was taken down briefly on Tuesday.

Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate, has now jumped in. On Wednesday, he rallied his 200,000 Twitter followers: “With two of my boys, Enjoying chick-in-strips and an awesome peach shake at Chick-fil-A. See you here next Wednesday!”

This week, Alderman Proco Moreno of Chicago said he would not move forward on land-use legislation that the company needs to open a second restaurant in that city, and on Friday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston sent a letter telling Mr. Cathy that his company was not welcome there.

The Jim Henson Company, which created toys for the chain, will not offer any more Muppets. On Friday, it said Lisa Henson, the chief executive officer, supported same-sex marriage and would donate money that the company had received from Chick-fil-A to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

About the same time, Chick-fil-A posted signs announcing a “voluntary recall” of all Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Puppet Kids Meal toys, citing reports that some children’s fingers had gotten stuck in the holes of the puppets. Last week, Mr. Cathy said in a statement that his company would “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

People aligned with the Cathy family’s position have said they have visited the chain more frequently since its involvement in the issue became more widely known last year. Others, like Jeff Graham, the executive director of the gay rights group Georgia Equality, say they are not sure this protest will be any more successful than previous efforts, which fizzled.

Mr. Graham said he was more interested in encouraging the company to write a corporate anti-discrimination policy that includes gays and lesbians.

And he does not know, he said, if he will show up for the kiss-in. If he does, he certainly will not order a sandwich.

“Frankly, I’m a vegetarian, and it’s been 20 years since I ate there,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Chick-fil-A Thrust Back Into Spotlight On Gay Rights. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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