‘Cracker Barrel has fallen’: Right-wingers rage over restaurant’s Pride Month support
Cracker Barrel has shown its support for Pride Month. (Credit: Getty Images)
Anti-LGBTQ+ right-wingers are raging and overreacting (again), this time over US restaurant chain Cracker Barrel sharing its support for Pride Month.
After the southern-style chain posted that “everyone is welcome” during Pride month, the Texas Family Project (TFP) stated: “We take no pleasure in reporting that Cracker Barrel has fallen.
“A once family-friendly establishment has caved to the mob.”
The Tennessee-based company showing support for Pride month has come as a surprise to many, having once been known as an anti-LGBTQ+ business.
The chain was criticised in the early 1990s for dismissing several workers based on their sexuality. In 1991, the New York Times reported that Cracker Barrel had announced gay employees would be fired as it goes against its “concept of traditional American values”.
The policy was soon reversed, and the company attempted to repair its image with the queer community. It currently rates 80 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
‘Gender clinics, drag shows, Cracker Barrel’
However, Texas Family Project was clearly unhappy about this growth, tweeting: “Places kids don’t belong: Gender clinics, drag shows, Cracker Barrel.”
Predictably, people wasted no time mocking the dismay of right-wing diners, with one Twitter user claiming “‘Cracker Barrel has fallen’ might be the funniest sentence ever composed using the English language.”
Vlogger and author Hank Green, who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer, joked: “Me: ‘I gotta stop participating in the ridiculousness of modern discourse’.
“Me two hours later: ‘Do you think they’d let me get a “Cracker Barrel has Fallen” tattoo between chemo treatments?’”
One Twitter user praised the chain’s support of the LGBTQ+ community and progression since the 1990s, recounting: “Couple years ago a Cracker Barrel executive was talking to me and my wife, and we were like, ‘it makes us nervous to go there as queers idk’, and the executive reached into their bag and gave us a stack of meal vouchers and said, ‘when we say everyone is welcome, we mean it’.”
The meme has even reached merch-status, with the Disaster Girls podcast announcing that they had made a series of ‘Cracker Barrel Has Fallen’ products, with profits going to drag charity Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
The criticism to the restaurant’s post mirrors several attempts by right-wingers to boycott LGBTQ+ inclusive brands in recent months, with Bud Light, Nike, Doritos and the Disney Channel apparently all off-limits due to adverts and campaigns supporting the queer community.
Cracker Barrel has not yet responded to criticism of its post. However, it did thank a poster who complimented it, saying it takes pride in creating a “welcoming, safe atmosphere”.
PinkNews has contacted Cracker Barrel for comment.
