Connecticut McDonald's Trolls Antigay Chick-fil-A With Inclusive Sign

A Connecticut McDonald's trolled its infamously anti-LGBT new neighbor, Chick-fil-A, with a note on the sign out front that reads, "We Welcome Everyone," reports local TV station WVIT.

The manager of the Glastonbury McDonald's, who spoke off camera with the station, said she wanted to merely send a message of inclusivity, considering Chick-fil-A's hateful anti-LGBT history, but many residents took the sign as a direct rebuke to the fast-food chicken chain.

"It just means that everyone is welcome, young, old, everyone," the McDonald's manager said, adding that it was not intended to be a political statement.

But one Connecticut resident who drove for hours out of her way to see the sign praised the McDonald's manager for posting it.

"For McDonald's to step up and say we welcome everyone. I feel that is a huge step for them. Then in the background, you have Chick-fil-A, who has historically not welcomed everyone," said Tina Manus.

The trouble with Chick-fil-A ramped up in 2012 when company head Dan Cathy admitted to opposing marriage equality and to donating to anti-LGBT causes.

If that weren't damning enough, Cathy also said that gay people are "arrogant" and "shake [their] fist at God."

The company has maintained a big fat zero on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, because despite boycotts and pushback over Chick-fil-A's brazen anti-LGBT stance, it has continued to donate to anti-LGBT organizations. Those organizations include the Paul Anderson Youth Home, which claims that the "sexual, physical, and mental abuse of children, mostly in the alleged 'safety' of their own homes, has produced all kinds of evil throughout the culture to include the explosion of homosexuality in the last century"; the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which has a "sexual purity" policy that bans "homosexual acts"; and the Salvation Army, which opposes marriage equality.

The franchise owner of the Glastonbury Chick-fil-A, which opens Thursday, steered clear of anti-LGBT controversy in a statement issued in response to the McDonald's taunt.

"We are excited to open in Glastonbury next week, and look forward to being great neighbors who welcome everyone," said franchise owner Jordan Snook. "Glastonbury will be representative of all Chick-fil-A restaurants in serving great food and providing remarkable service for all customers, as well as a diverse workplace of individuals who represent many viewpoints, opinions, backgrounds, and beliefs."