Lesson for social conservatives: put not your trust in princes, nor in rap stars turned Christian. And especially not in chicken sandwiches. Unless you’re hungry.

Conservatives were surprised when it was announced in November that Chick-fil-A was ending its philanthropic partnerships with the Salvation Army, The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Paul Anderson Youth home, three organization repeatedly targeted by the left as being “anti-LGBT.” But the news that the chain gives to (among other objectionable groups) the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is simply stunning.

Once upon a time, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan T. Cathy publicly stated the family-led firm was guided by old time religion, right down to believing in traditional marriage. The left and the media condemned the poultry puritanism and called for boycotts. Conservative rallied ‘round the company and its “hate chicken,” flocking to “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.”

Then on August 15, 2012, a man named Floyd Corkins entered the Family Research Council’s office in Washington, D.C., armed with a handgun and carrying a bag of Chick-fil-A. Corkin’s idea was to kill the traditional values group’s staff and mark the bodies with chicken sandwiches. He’d learned about FRC from the SPLC “Hate Map.”

FRC’s building manager, Leo Jenkins, subdued Corkins before he could carry out the plan, taking a bullet wound in the process.

SPLC is a progressive direct mail giant -- a lefty hate group that makes money screaming “Hate Group” at anyone to the right of People for the American Way. It trades in slander and fear, and in the case of FRC, it nearly got people killed. (James Hodgkinson, the leftist who shot up the Republican Congressional Baseball Game practice in 2017, was also an SPLC fan.)

So Ryan Bomberger’s November 26 report at Town Hall is disturbing. “In 2017 Chick-fil-A donated money to the same corrupt SPLC that still outrageously lists FRC as a ‘hate group’,” Bomberger writes. The amount, $2,500 for “civic/community programming,” isn’t significant. But why feed that crocodile at all?

The answer seems to be that Chick-fil-A is shedding the Christian identity its CEO boasted about in 2012. A look at some of the other 2017 donations -- to radically pro-LGBT and pro-abortion groups -- confirms this, as does dumping the Salvation Army.

Maybe the company is tired of fighting the culture and the petty prejudices of parochial liberals every time it wants to enter a new market. Chick-fil-A’s recent misadventure in England and the hostile exclusion from the Sant Antonio airport must have been embarrassing, and Cathy et al have a business to run. The price of doing that business these days may be buying the goodwill of lefty bullies.

If that’s the case, Chick-fil-A is just another tasty sandwich. We should have known.