What does Chick-fil-A have to do with Uganda’s anti-gay bill? Not much

Some Facebook users are implicating Chick-fil-A in a Ugandan bill that would impose the death penalty for gay sex.

"Today Uganda announced a bill to legalize murdering gay people," reads one popular post, which was published Oct. 14. "National Christian Organization paid a preacher to go to Uganda and help their lawmakers with the bill. Chick-fil-a (sic) funds National Christian Org."

"If you eat at Chick-fil-a, this is what your money goes to."

The post, which is a screenshot of a tweet, was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post refers to a bill in Uganda, where homosexuality is already illegal, that would punish gay sex with death. The bill was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but lawmakers have announced plans to revive it.

In essence, the post is claiming that Chick-fil-A’s charitable contributions have been used to promote the death penalty for gay people in Uganda. Similar claims about the fried chicken chain and the Uganda bill have been shared thousands of times, so we wanted to check it out.

Here’s what we found:

• The nonprofit the Facebook post is referencing is the National Christian Foundation.

• The preacher mentioned in the post did travel to Uganda around the time lawmakers were debating an anti-LGBTQ bill, but there’s no evidence he helped craft it.

• The foundation run by Chick-fil-A’s owners has donated to the National Christian Foundation in the past, but it doesn’t currently.

An American evangelical preacher supported by the National Christian Foundation did travel to Uganda in 2010, the same year the country was debating an anti-LGBTQ bill. But Colorado-based preacher Lou Engle didn’t "help their lawmakers with the bill," as the Facebook post claims.

Let’s focus first on what Engle did or didn’t do while in Uganda.

Engle is the co-founder of TheCall Ministries, a defunct evangelical Christian group known for anti-LGBTQ views. It aimed to start "a John the Baptist type movement to fast and pray in preparation for a 3rd great awakening."

In 2010, Engle traveled to Kampala, Uganda, to be the guest of honor at a Sunday prayer and rally about "homosexuality, witchcraft, corruption and the fear of violence leading up to the country’s presidential election next year," the New York Times reported.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni signs a new anti-gay bill that sets harsh penalties for homosexual sex, in Entebbe, Uganda Monday, Feb. 24, 2014. (AP)

At the time, Ugandan lawmakers were debating a bill that broadened the criminalization of homosexuality and imposed the death penalty. A different version of the bill, which imposed life sentences instead of the death penalty, was signed into law in 2014, resulting in sanctions from the United States and other countries. A court annulled it later that year due to a legislative technicality.

Engle was not directly linked to the legislation in Uganda, and he issued a statement ahead of his rally condemning the bill’s harsh penalties for homosexuality. However, during his rally in Kampala, Engle did praise the country’s "courage" and "righteousness" in pursuing the bill, the Times reported.