This franchise owner acted without corporate blessing, and if I had to guess, that message was intentionally not passed up the chain.

If that is true then wouldn’t that be the message?

We don’t take sides, and this franchise did, so he can’t be a franchise owner anymore. Sell something that isn’t McDonald’s.

I don’t think that was their message. Their message was, "please don’t be mad at us. " Like someone else said in this thread, this doesn’t change my opinion of McDonald’s and I already wasn’t eating there. I just see their excuse as another BS reason.