Chipotle Cancels Boy Scout Event Sponsorship for Stance on Gay Members
Posted: 20 March 2013 11:57 AM   [ Ignore ]  
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On March 3, Chipotle Mexican Grill held an event in the Salt Lake area offering free items to Boy Scouts in uniforms.

However, members and supporters of the LGBTQ community were outraged that Chipotle’s support seemed to go against their policy of not supporting “organizations that discriminate against a person or a group on the basis of age, political affiliation, race, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or religious belief,” as the Boy Scouts currently have a ban on gay leaders and scouts.

In protest, the community leaned in on Chipotle and asked them to clarify their support and their policy.

Chipotle originally stood by their support for the Scouts, saying it was for the children, “many of whom are fans and customers.” The Tex-Mex chain also had an event planned for May, during which they would give out food coupons for the Great Salt Lake Council’s Utah Scout-O-Rama fundraiser.

Despite their original stance however, Chipotle has cancelled their sponsorship of the event with Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold telling ThinkProgress Tuesday, “…Community support decisions like this are made in a decentralized way and this one was inconsistent with our own policy. We believed that terminating the sponsorship and remaining consistent with our policy was the right thing to do, and we have reinforced our policy with the team that makes these decisions to try to prevent similar issues in the future.”

This announcement came just one day after admitting the support of such an organization was indeed a violation of Chipotle’s corporate non-discrimination policies.

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