Conservatives are having a kitten over Cracker Barrel’s embrace of Pride Month and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
One conservative group declared that “Cracker Barrel has fallen” because of the company’s fairly conventional nod to inclusion and diversity:
We take no pleasure in reporting that @CrackerBarrel has fallen.
— Texas Family Project (@FamilyProjectTX) June 8, 2023
A once family friendly establishment has caved to the mob. pic.twitter.com/IM0p1NT20S
Right-wingers were also triggered by an image the company posted on its social media channels showing its porch full of rocking chairs, with one featuring a rainbow pattern in the slats:
“We are excited to celebrate Pride Month with our employees and guests. Everyone is always welcome at our table,” the company wrote.
Cracker Barrel did not always welcome everyone at its table, or at least within its employment ranks. The company notoriously banned LGBTQ people from working in its restaurants and fired employees it learned were gay. Those transphobic policies were reversed in 1991.
The company now has a diversity, equity and inclusion policy, scores an 80 on the Human Rights Campaign’s corporate equality index and made headlines in 2019 for refusing to allow an anti-gay pastor to hold an event in one of its restaurants.
Right-wingers aren’t happy with those changes, but plenty of people are thrilled ― and many comments on Facebook are celebrating the company.
Cracker Barrel is responding to some of those positive posts.
“We want everyone to feel welcome at our table, and that will never change,” the company said in response to one.
“We truly value what everyone brings to the table and couldn’t be happier to read your kind words,” it wrote to another.
The right’s latest meltdown led to big laughs on Twitter ― and caused Cracker Barrel to trend:
Cracker Barrel: we’re going to treat our customers like we would anyone else, even if they’re gay, lesbian, trans, etc.
— Nathan Santo Domingo (@NSDwx) June 9, 2023
40% of America: pic.twitter.com/apqs6SxOSt
06.08.2023
— Cat Cardenas (@catrcardenas) June 9, 2023
Cracker Barrel has fallen 🪦🌈 pic.twitter.com/NIiLdsp5kA
After the great gay purge of 1991, the gays have slowly infiltrated and taken over Cracker Barrel. We play the long game. pic.twitter.com/kQhhbSrROm
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) June 9, 2023
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Thank you Cracker Barrel for not bowing down to this attack. So tired of people being allowed to make decisions that suits them. Love your restaurant and will continue to eat there.
I couldn’t care less who a person chooses to copulate with. I don’t care if they identify with being a horned toad and want to mate with a grasshopper. But I am very tired with having their particular lifestyles crammed down my throat and one of the options that I have is to choose whether or not to spend my money at businesses that are engaging in promoting their lifestyles. Businesses should restrict their activities to selling products, not engaging in social issues.
I guess their company hasn’t noticed the backlash this kind of crap brings. You say you will continue to serve anyone and everyone, which you should. All you needed to do was to continue that but apparently you want to be noticed for being involved in the latest fad. Businesses should keep their mouths shut on politics and religion. Talk to Budweiser and Target and Disney. Are you trying to go bankrupt?
Cracker Barrel; isn’t the same ‘inclusive’ company that was seating “people of color” towards the rear of their restaurants, and paid a very substantial fine for their actions?
Kowtowing to what amounts to an estimated 3% > 4.5% of the population, and a group that I truly doubt frequent these establishments on a regular basis anyway will probably not work out in the long run, just ask Bud Light and Target, two of the latest corporations that went WOKE!
To Cracker Barrel ‘corporate suits’; you people are fools!