In 2017, Grace Slick struck a blow for gay rights and it’s still reverberating

Grace Slick. Screen capture by Creative Worx Motion Media via YouTube

During the 2017 Grammy awards, the notoriously anti-gay fast-food chain Chick-fil-A aired a perky commercial that featured Starship’s song “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” This may have seemed a bit shocking at the time, considering that various iterations of the band came to symbolize the psychedelic, flower child scene that was San Francisco in the 1960s.

But if you think lead singer Grace Slick has turned into a right-winger, think again, Live For Live Music reports. Because did something pretty terrific with the money earned from that commercial. Virtually all of it has been donated to organizations that protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV.

And she notes this in an op-ed for Forbes. 

“Chick-fil-A pisses me off,” she writes. “The Georgia-based company has a well-documented history of funding organizations through their philanthropic foundation WinShape, that are against gay marriage. In interviews, CEO Dan T. Cathy has critiqued gay-rights supporters who have ‘the audacity to define marriage’ and said they are bringing ‘God’s judgment upon the nation.’ I firmly believe that men should be able to marry men, and women, women.”

This is a basic human right, she adds and she’s against those who try to suppress this.

“So my first thought, when Chick-fil-A came to me was ‘f*ck no!”

So rather than decline the fast food chain’s offer, she decided to do something about this unpleasant situation. By helping where it counts.

“I am donating every dime that I make from that ad to Lambda Legal, the largest national organization, the largest national legal organization working to advance the civil rights of LGBTQ people, and everyone living with HIV. Admittedly it’s not the millions that WinShape has given to organizations that define marriage as heterosexual. But instead of them replacing my song with someone else’s and losing this opportunity to strike back at anti-LGBTQ forces, I decided to spend the cash in direct opposition to Chick-fil-A’s causes — and to make a public example of them, too. We’re going to take some of their money and pay it back.”

But if you fast-forward to 2019, you find that Chick-fil-A is still up to its’ homophobic tricks. Company representatives were not amused late last year when a New Jersey-based university nixed plans for a restaurant on campus, citing the chain’s stance on LGBTQ rights. An attorney for the company said perceptions that the chain is anti-LGBTQ are false, but Cathy has voiced his anti-gay sentiments before.

And for anyone still not certain if Cathy and his ilk are anti-gay, this post from Snopes seals the deal.

So what this really means is, in a world full of Dan Cathys, be a Grace Slick.

The beloved singer, artist, and activist shares her views in the interview below. The Chick-fil-A commercial follows this.

Featured image by Creative Worx Motion Media via YouTube video