A Whopper from Burger Queen-uh King

By Elizabeth Nelson

I know Burger King isn’t McDonalds or Chick-fil-A, but Burger King works on the same platform, as they help us parents bribe our kids to eat all their food by giving us toys in our “Happy Meals.” However, do you remember when that’s all we got in the meal, a toy, and the food was just food; sadly, not after today? Now we have food with a side of one-sided Political agenda.

Well one San Francisco BK decided that they needed a “Be Your Way” LGBT Gay burger; it’s called the “Proud Whopper” served in a Rainbow wrapper through gay pride week. Notice that the Senior Vice President of Global Branding led the effort, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this in more cities, other than in San Francisco.

One San Francisco location is serving up something special during LGBT pride week. Behind the counter at a Burger King in the heart of San Francisco is a rainbow-colored menu board advertising a product that the fast-food behemoth has never sold before and isn’t selling anywhere else: The Proud Whopper.

When customers visiting during Sunday’s pride parade asked cashiers what made this Whopper different from a standard-issue burger, they simply said, “I don’t know.” The mystery was revealed once diners opened the rainbow-colored wrapper and got a taste: absolutely nothing is different about this burger, nothing at all. To emphasize the point, the interior of the wrapper comes with a second message: “We Are All the Same Inside.”


The campaign was conceived just a few months ago as a way for Burger King to bring the company’s new “Be Your Way” tagline to life. Fernando Machado, a senior vice president of global branding, led the effort, which included on-the-spot filming of customers’ reactions outside the location at Market and 8th Streets. (This post will be updated to include the video once it is available.) “As a brand, we welcome everyone,” Machado tells TIME. “We felt that [the Proud Whopper] could bring to life a message of equality, self-expression, authenticity and just being who you are.”


Even in the liberal bastion that is the City by the Bay, not all the responses were positive. In a rough cut of the reaction video, one bystander says, “Well, if that’s what they’re gonna do, they won’t be having my business anymore.” Others smile, some cry out of solidarity, many express their support. One, hilariously, questions whether “gay people even eat fast food.”

Burger King also sponsored pride parades in New York and San Francisco, both of which took place this past weekend, and the company gave out about 700,000 rainbow-colored paper crowns. Machado says that he knows their clear signal of support for the LGBT community isn’t going to float everyone’s boat. “As with anything in life, there will be people who will like it, there will people who will dislike it,” he says. “We just hope that people will understand that the message is a beautiful one.”

In the fast food world, the Proud Whopper campaign puts Burger King in stark contrast to Chick-fil-A, which is still trying to move past anti-same-sex marriage comments made by CEO Dan Cathy, prompting gay couples to stage “kiss-in” protests in 2012. Machado says this effort isn’t designed to be a contrast. “Frankly we were not concerned about benchmarking ourselves compared to other brands,” he says. “We were much more concerned to do what was right for our brand.”


This is the part that really puts a bee in my bonnet. The LBGT wants their message out, without any interference from anyone else, so that they can desensitize the American public. However, if Wendys or Chick-fil-A were to unveil a Salvation Sandwich, wrapped in a picture of Christ coming out of the tomb, for the week leading up to Easter, we would see a Hell the likes which even Satan himself would blush over.  

Burger King scrapped their 40-year-old food-centric slogan “Have It Your Way” in May, replacing it with the people-centric “Be Your Way.” Machado says it’s all about making a connection with customers. “We really want to be more than burgers, fries and shakes,” he says, “and occupy a space that’s more meaningful to people.”

The Proud Whoppers, which went on sale June 28, will be available at the San Francisco location throughout San Francisco Pride week. Read more Time

At the non-profit I work for, I field the desperate calls for help, daily, and they are all the same; I could write the script, people asking for more help than their SSI, unemployment, and food stamps can sate. After months of these calls, a part of me wants to cry out, “but your president won, isn’t this the ‘hope and change’ you voted for?” After he was reelected, the change they voted for was quickly becoming self-evident, because out of Obama’s mouth, “we are no longer a Christian Nation.” Well, Dosteoevsky said it best, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted," and with an allegedly gay leader, we’ve come out of the closet, America. We are now an LBGT openly gay nation. 

These are the corners our Country has taken and we’re in the ditch.  What used to work for our Country will no longer be used, because this President wants to try Socialism, it’s just too bad that no other country has tried it to see how it will fair for our Country.