In July 2025, Instagram (archived) posts (archived) claimed that Uganda had just announced a bill that would "legalize murdering gay people." The posts, which combined for tens of thousands of likes, claimed that fast-food eatery Chick-fil-A supported this bill by funding the "National Christian Organization," which the posts said paid a preacher to go to Uganda to help its lawmakers with the bill.
The same claim was spread around social media in October 2019. Snopes covered the claim at the time.
The posts in 2025 and 2019 used the exact same language in their claims:
Today Uganda announced a bill to legalize murdering gay people. National Christian Organization paid a preacher to go to Uganda and help their lawmakers with the bill. Chick-fil-a funds National Christian Org. If you eat at Chick-fil-a, this is what your money goes to.
Some of the information in this claim is wrong or outdated, while some other aspects of the claim are correct or nearly correct. While the claim may not be entirely accurate in the details, it is true that Uganda has some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world, and the development of these laws has been supported by American anti-LGBTQ+ organizations.
Uganda's anti-LGBTQ+ bill
In May 2023, Uganda's government wrote the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 into law. The law punishes people for up to life in prison for committing the "offence of homosexuality," defined as sexual acts between people of the same sex. The law punishes people who commit the act of "aggravated homosexuality" — an offense someone can receive for being a "serial offender" among other scenarios — with death.
In April 2024, Uganda's Constitutional Court permitted most of the law, striking down a handful of pieces from the legislation while allowing the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" to remain in place.
Homosexuality in Uganda has been outlawed since 1950, when the nation was still a British colony, according to a timeline from GLAD Law, an LGBTQ+ rights organization. The first bill to attempt to legalize the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuality in Uganda was introduced in 2009. By the time the bill became law in 2014, the death-penalty language had been removed following international pressure. Uganda's Constitutional Court struck down the law later that year on the basis of a technicality regarding its passage in parliament.
In 2019, at the time the claim first spread across social media, a minister in Uganda's government indicated the government would soon attempt to revive the introduction of the death penalty as punishment for homosexuality, although the government press office contradicted the minister at the time and said "the current provisions in the Penal Code are sufficient."
'National Christian Organization' and the preacher
There is no such thing as the National Christian Organization, but there is a National Christian Foundation (NCF), and it is linked to Uganda's history of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
In 2014, The Center Against Christian Extremism, also called TWOCARE, put together an "encyclopedia" documenting the National Christian Foundation's history of anti-LGBTQ+ funding to that point. "Uganda" appears in that encyclopedia 157 times.
According to TWOCARE, the NCF provided funding to TheCall, a now-defunct organization headed by preacher Lou Engle, from 2008 to 2012, a time during which Engle led an anti-LGBTQ+ rally in Uganda. TWOCARE stated that the foundation gave TheCall more than $166,000 in 2008, but no more than $1,300 in a single year between 2009 and 2012. Tax documents confirm the NCF's funding for TheCall. Engle's anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy in Uganda has been referenced in reporting by other organizations, including by Human Rights Watch in 2011. Engle was not directly linked to the death-penalty legislation, and he
A 2012 investigation by The Atlantic found that the NCF gave $817,000 in 2008 to Ed Silvoso, an evangelist minister who worked closely with a prominent Ugandan bishop who was a leading advocate for Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill at the time.
The National Christian Foundation's most recent publicly available tax filing, for 2023, included donations to some of the groups highlighted for their anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy in the 2014 TWOCARE encyclopedia, such as
Chick-fil-A's connection to the NCF
Chick-fil-A did previously give money, albeit indirectly, to the National Christian Foundation, but Snopes could not find evidence of recent donations from Chick-fil-A to the NCF.
At one time, the WinShape Foundation, the charitable organization started by Chick-fil-A's founder Truett Cathy, gave money to the National Christian Foundation, including in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Most of the WinShape Foundation's funding comes from Chick-fil-A itself, as seen in the organization's tax filings from 2022. While WinShape has received small amounts of funding from the NCF in recent years, it has not donated any money back to the NCF, including in 2022. Most of WinShape's spending over the past decade has been on its own programs as opposed to other organizations, which can be seen in the rest of its annual tax filings.
Chick-Fil-A's 2024 Global Impact Report does not document any direct funding for the NCF or other groups engaged in shaping international policy.
There is no publicly available documentation to confirm the recent donation record of Chick-fil-A's ownership or executives. James McCabe, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Chick-fil-A, is on the board of directors for the NCF, according to GuideStar.
Chick-fil-A has had a history of donating to groups with anti-LGBTQ+ records, but a shift in the focus of the company's donations meant such groups stopped receiving Chick-fil-A's donations beginning in 2020. For further reading, Snopes reported on Chick-fil-A's shift in philanthropic strategy in 2019.
In sum …
Uganda did pass a law that made "aggravated homosexuality" punishable by death in 2023. While this is not the same as legalizing the murder of gay people, it does mean that gay people within the country are at risk of being killed for same-sex relations. This law was passed after western anti-LGBTQ+ organizations spent tens of millions of dollars opposing LGBTQ+ rights in Uganda over the course of more than a decade, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Uganda lawmakers had been trying to make homosexuality punishable by death since at least 2009.
While there is no such thing as the National Christian Organization, there is a National Christian Foundation. The NCF has given money to many of the organizations and individuals that have been active in opposing LGBTQ+ rights in Uganda, including an organization affiliated with a preacher who headed an anti-LGBTQ+ rally in Uganda and a minister who worked closely with a leading local advocate for Uganda's first attempt at passing its anti-homosexuality bill.
The WinShape Foundation, a charitable organization closely linked to Chick-fil-A and that receives most of its funding from Chick-fil-A, gave money to the NCF during the same years the NCF was in turn giving money to the preacher and minister mentioned above. However, the WinShape Foundation has not given money to the NCF for several years. Chick-fil-A's most recent giving report did not document any donations to the NCF.
The recent donation history of Chick-fil-A's owners or executives cannot be confirmed, although the company's executive vice president is on the NCF's board of directors.
Snopes' archives contributed to this report.