Cracker Barrel has removed the “Pride” section of its website, which once highlighted the chain’s sponsorship of the Nashville Pride Parade. Visitors are now redirected to a “Culture and Belonging” page.
The company insists the change was part of routine site updates, not a reaction to backlash from right-wing conservatives.
“In connection with the Company’s brand work, we have recently made updates to the Cracker Barrel website, including adding new content and removing out-of-date content,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Cracker Barrel recently attempted to rebrand with a new logo and restaurant redesign. Its conservative-leaning customer base balked at the loss of the chain’s Americana “country store” décor, replaced by a pared-down modernist theme and the removal of “The Old Timer,” an elderly white man leaning on a barrel in the logo.
The changes sparked accusations that Cracker Barrel was trying to go “woke,” prompting the company to quickly reverse course and restore “The Old Timer” to its logo. That reversal did little to quell conservative anger.
The restaurant remained under scrutiny from conservative activists like Robby Starbuck and Chris Rufo, who have built their reputations on pressuring companies to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies — which they claim are discriminatory — and to end any support for or acknowledgment of the LGBTQ community.
Critics also pointed to Cracker Barrel’s sponsorship of the 2024 Nashville Pride Parade and its launch of rainbow-colored rocking chairs for Pride Month. Some objected to the creation of an LGBTQ employee group called the “LGBTQ+ Alliance,” one of several business resource groups that also included racial minorities and veterans.
Those business resource groups are now at the center of complaints filed in July with the Tennessee Attorney General by the right-wing legal group America First Legal. The group argues that Cracker Barrel’s DEI policies create discriminatory employment practices, allegedly favoring minorities at the expense of white heterosexuals. AFL further contends that, because Cracker Barrel’s clientele skews conservative, such policies betray the company’s customer base.
A Cracker Barrel spokesperson told Fox News Digital the company had changed its business resource groups “months ago” to focus on corporate giving. The BRGs, still listed on the company’s website as recently as August 27, have since been removed.
Social conservatives are claiming vindication for their views after Robin Westman, the 23-year-old behind the August 27 mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, was identified as transgender by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in an X post.
Armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, Westman fired dozens of rounds into the church during a morning Mass attended by students from the affiliated Annunciation Catholic School, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said, as reported by The Associated Press.
Authorities in Morocco have arrested Ibtissame "Betty" Lachgar, a prominent feminist and human rights activist, over a T-shirt reading, "Allah is lesbian."
The slogan echoes the phrase "God is a Lesbian," first published in the 2013 book The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson. The phrase has appeared on T-shirts as both satire and religious critique, according to The New Arab, a London-based pan-Arab news outlet.
In an X post sharing a photo of the shirt, Lachgar wrote, "In Morocco, I walk around with T-shirts bearing messages against religions, Islam, etc. You tire us with your sanctimoniousness, your accusations. Yes, Islam, like any religious ideology, is fascist, phallocratic and misogynistic."
Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón, a Republican and member of the New Progressive Party, has signed what is now the strictest law in the United States prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming care to anyone under the age of 21, with steep penalties for violations.
The law imposes a $50,000 fine and up to 15 years in prison for each violation by health care professionals who provide gender-affirming care to minors and young adults. Offenders would also lose their medical licenses and permits and would be permanently barred from practicing medicine in Puerto Rico, reports The Hill.
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