As the furor over Chick-Fil-A's millions of dollars of donations to anti-gay hate groups continues to grow, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has launched today's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. According to qnotes, the North Carolina-based LGBT publication, a host of local anti-LGBT leaders including evangelists Billy Graham and son Franklin Graham and Republican Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James have said they'll stand with the company.
In South Carolina, Tar Heel Capital CEO Jim Furman allegedly ordered that his 75 North and South Carolina locations of competing fast food restaurant, Wendy's, post "We stand with Chick-fil-A" on their marquees. Twitter protesters got Wendy's corporate folks busy putting out panicked tweets that read, "We are looking into this" and later Wendy's International spokesperson Denny Lynch told qnotes' Matt Comer that Furman, an independent franchisee and owner of the Carolina stores, had decided to remove the messages from his signs.
"This is one independent franchisee's personal opinion," Lynch told qnotes as he read a prepared statement over the phone. "We are proud to serve customers of varied races, backgrounds, cultures, and sexual orientations with different beliefs and values. Bearing that in mind, this franchisee has decided to remove the messages from his restaurants' signs."
Meanwhile, in Texas, lesbian activist (and former Chick-Fil-A customer) Just Kusko started a simple protest that has become a Facebook viral hit by spending the day in a cow suit outside her local Chick-Fil-A. "These pictures have really taken off," she told us. "And whats funny is, it all started as a simple Facebook status. I was just sick and tired of hearing about how Chick-Fil-A could promote such hate, denouncing me as a human being. Seeing all of my friends comments on Facebook just broke my heart. And to think, of all those chicken sandwiches I ate. I actually was paying for my own demise."
So Kusko posted a her vent-style status that read "My Protest Plan: I will stand in front of Chik Fil A in a cow costume, wearing a sign: 'I changed my mind, EAT ME!' (pictures to come.)" Her wife Laura Gorman
and her friends encouraged her so Kusko "documented the journey, and posted along the way. I just decided, there are a lot of mean and hateful people out there, that, feel if you are not like them, you must be less than. They can choose to be hateful. I choose not to be. I love life and everyone in it. And I am lucky enough to have a wife that supports my crazy-ass ideas -- that always helps."
Gorman's photos show Kusko in her suit, with the background photoshopped to read "Gays Not Welcome," all in an effort to, as she says, "Keep the Mooooovement alive."
![Justkusko_and_lauragormanx400[1]](https://www.advocate.com/media-library/justkusko-and-lauragormanx400-1.jpg?id=32763947&width=980)
