It seems telling that the political conservatives attracting media attention for coming to the defense of Chick-fil-A and its anti-gay crusades — Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty — are all most recently known for having lost elections. Indeed, the anti-gay vitriol that Chick-fil-A’s president Dan Cathy has repeatedly dispensed has been a loser with the public: YouGov BrandIndex polling shows that the public’s approval of Chick-fil-A has taken a nosedive since Cathy’s interview from 65 to 39:

Meanwhile, a number of prominent leaders have continued to show their displeasure with Chick-fil-A. Here’s a sampling:

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “For the record, I prefer Kentucky Fried Chick. #ChickFilA” (Twitter)
• Washington, DC Mayor Vince Gray (D): “Given my longstanding strong support for LGBT rights & marriage equality, I would not support #hatechicken” (Twitter)
• Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker (D): “Wouldn’t deny a biz a permit on those grounds BUT I’d join my residents in taking my $’s elsewhere” (Twitter)
• Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA): “I disagree with what the CEO from Chick-fil-A said. I was glad he spoke further and said that his company does not discriminate.” (Boston.com)

To clarify Brown’s remarks, Chick-fil-A said it will “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect,” regardless of sexual orientation, but the company still has no employment protections in its official corporate policies. According to Forbes.com, there have been at least 12 lawsuits against the company since 1988 on various charges of employment discrimination.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D) wrote to the president of New York University, home to the city’s only Chick-fil-A, urging him to end the university’s relationship with the anti-gay restaurant:

NYC is a place where we celebrate diversity. We do not believe in denigrating others…As you know from recent press coverage, the President of Chick-fil-A continues to make statements and support causes that are clear messages of extreme intolerance and homophobia and a belief that LGBT Americans are less than others and deserve to be treated as such.[...]

I urge you to sever your relationship with the Chick-fil-A establishment that exists on your campus. This establishment should be replaced with an establishment where the ownership does not denigrate a portion of our population.

Another university’s leadership has already taken action against a Chick-fil-A on its campus. The president and provost at the University of Louisville released a statement saying that they “will not be eating at Chick-fil-A anytime soon.” Responding to a growing student petition, U of L administrators are currently assessing the contractual arrangements with the franchise on campus to evaluate further courses of action. At least seven other universities also have petitions underway challenging the existence of a Chick-fil-A on their campuses.

Attacking gay people as purveyors of society’s destruction is harmful to many people, and as public condemnation grows, it’s proving to be a losing philosophy for Chick-fil-A.

Mayors for the Freedom to Marry

DC Mayor Vincent Gray and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, both Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, have spoken out against the National Organization for Marriage’s race-baiting tactics as revealed this week in confidential memos:

VILLARAIGOSA: We need to come together as a country if we are going to tackle our biggest challenges. NOM’s divisive effort to pit one group of Americans against another is offensive and takes us in exactly the wrong direction. If we believe in family values, we must value all families; and I believe that every adult – regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnic heritage – should have the freedom to marry the person they love.

GRAY: Across our nation, gay and lesbian couples seek equal marriage rights because they believe in the same values we all do – commitment, stability, responsibility and family. That’s why it’s especially confounding that an organization that claims to support family values would seek to pit groups against each other in a hateful and cynical effort to deny equal rights to some families.

NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher followed through on those very tactics this morning, telling MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, “I don’t apologize for any of it.”