Well, folks, here we are—a hospital apologizing for… handing out free chicken sandwiches. And not just any chicken sandwiches, but Chick-fil-A sandwiches, which, depending on who you ask, are either delicious symbols of crispy, buttery goodness or the cause of the downfall of civilization. Welcome to 2024, where even lunch comes with a side of outrage.
Here’s the rundown: Earlier this year, Essentia Health in Duluth, Minnesota, dared to let Chick-fil-A hand out free sandwiches in the atrium of St. Mary’s Medical Center. You’d think free food for hard-working healthcare staff would be met with gratitude, but no. Instead, it kicked off an email firestorm that reads more like satire than reality.
One nurse fired off an indignant email: “Chick-fil-A is an Anti-LGBTQ+ business and I would not recommend supporting them in any way. We need to protect vulnerable communities during this time and at all times.”
Another staffer, whose email signature proudly featured “they/them” pronouns, lamented: “The sandwiches might be free, but the implicit endorsement certainly has a cost.”
Look, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but at the end of the day… it’s a sandwich. And here’s where the real comedy begins: another staff member had the gall to point that out. “It is just a Sandwich,” they wrote. “Plenty of the items Essentia Health uses in the healthcare industry to include supplies and equipment were likely made in China. It doesn’t mean that Essentia supports communism or government oppression.”
And do you know what happened to that level-headed response? Crickets. No heart emojis, no thumbs-up reactions. Just pure, icy silence.
🧵EXCLUSIVE: Read the emails from the “courageous” hospital staffers who complained about free Chick-fil-A
The Minnesota hospital later apologized profusely for allowing the free lunch pic.twitter.com/frs6ESESBN
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) November 22, 2024
But it didn’t stop there. Senior Vice President Tammy Kritzer—whose email signature also featured her pronouns—responded with a corporate grovel so elaborate it could have been set to music. She thanked those who expressed their “courage” in speaking up, assured staff that the free sandwiches were “not intended to endorse a business or business practices,” and even threw in a Maya Angelou quote for good measure: “When we know better, we do better.”
Ah yes, nothing says “we’re deeply sorry for lunch” like quoting Maya Angelou.
Let’s back up a bit. Chick-fil-A has been in the cultural crosshairs for years because of donations the company made in the past to groups like the Salvation Army. Now, if you’re clutching your pearls over that, let’s clarify: the Salvation Army isn’t exactly some backwoods hate group—they provide food, shelter, and disaster relief to millions every year.
And while activists continue to smear Chick-fil-A as “anti-LGBTQ+,” the company has gone out of its way to emphasize its commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” You’d think that would be enough, but evidently not.
The sandwich saga at Essentia Health is just another chapter in the bizarre cultural phenomenon where even the mere presence of Chick-fil-A is treated like a political statement. It doesn’t matter that the sandwiches were free, or that they were being handed out as a gesture of goodwill. In 2024, fried chicken has become a battleground.
Here’s where it gets a little stickier. Essentia Health is a Catholic hospital system with a mission to “promote Christ’s ministry of holistic healing for all human life with special concern for the poor and powerless.” But—and here’s the twist—they also provide cross-sex hormones to minors and have reportedly performed at least five sex-change operations on minors.
So let’s get this straight: free chicken sandwiches are a bridge too far, but permanently altering the bodies of confused teenagers? Well, apparently that fits snugly within their “values of respect and justice.”
The hypocrisy here isn’t just glaring—it’s blinding. A Catholic hospital bending over backward to apologize for free chicken sandwiches from a company founded on Christian values, while simultaneously engaging in practices directly at odds with Catholic teaching? It’s almost impressive how they’ve managed to tie themselves into such an ideological pretzel.
