Chick-Fil-A Sandwiches Become Political Symbol

Chick-Fil-A Sandwiches Become Political Symbol

By Bill Barrow | HuffPost | 07/26/12 04:38 PM ET
Excerpts:

ATLANTA – “All of a sudden, biting into a fried chicken sandwich has become a political statement.

Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chain known for putting faith ahead of profits by closing on Sundays, is standing firm in its opposition to gay marriage after touching off a furor earlier this month.

Gay rights groups have called for a boycott, the Jim Henson Co. pulled its Muppet toys from kids' meals, and politicians in Boston and Chicago told the chain it is not welcome there.

Across the Bible Belt, where most of the 1,600 restaurants are situated, Christian Across the Bible Belt, where most of the 1,600 restaurants are situated, Christian conservatives have thrown their support behind the Atlanta-based company, promising to buy chicken sandwiches and waffle fries next week on "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day."

The latest skirmish in the nation's culture wars began when Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that the company was "guilty as charged" for backing "the biblical definition of a family." In a later radio interview, he ratcheted up the rhetoric: "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, `We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.'"

That fired up gay rights advocates, including a group that waged a campaign against the company in recent years by publicizing $3 million in contributions that the Cathy family foundation has made to conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council.

"This solidifies Chick-fil-A as being closely aligned with some of the most vicious anti-gay voices in the country," said Carlos Maza of Equality Matters.

In announcing it was pulling its toys, the Jim Henson company said it has "celebrated and embraced diversity for over 50 years." It directed its revenue from the Chick-fil-A toys to GLAAD, a leading gay rights organization.

Chick-fil-A posted more than $4.1 billion in sales last year, most of it below the Mason-Dixon Line. Just 14 of its restaurants are in the six states and the District of Columbia where gay marriage is legal.

Massachusetts has just two locations, both more than 10 miles from Boston. Illinois, which does not have same-sex marriage, has around a dozen, though only one in Chicago.

At a downtown Atlanta Chick-fil-A on Thursday, customers were divided over the company's stance. Dustin Keller offered another view of Cathy: ‘It's his opinion. He's entitled to it. I'm just here to eat.’ "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...-_n_1707511.html?utm_hp_ref=politics#comments
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There are over 164 Chick-fil-A’s in Florida, and I have visited one on occasion when I have had an urge for those waffle potatoes and a salad, but I will not be going there any more because I don’t feel that any business in a Democracy should flout their religious views, especially in a restaurant, as customers could care less about an owner’s rabid misplaced religious fervor concerning ANY issue.

A restaurant is a place to go and enjoy your lunch, not have it embroiled in a media frenzy concerning someone’s lifestyle, or women’s private decisions concerning her own body, or anything other than how the food tastes.

The usurpation of different social views into that of businesses, and a crass brainwash of their views without regard to yours, shows a belief that their views are right and your views are wrong and unChristian.

A restaurant owner must not air their views, and to have an “appreciation day” for the ‘one man one woman concept of marriage’ as the only acceptable one is extremely shortsighted as it leaves out three distinct portions of our society...gays, lesbians, and transgenders, leaving them alienated from God. This is unConstitutional, arbitrary, punitive, and makes rules that the religious fanatics consider more important than our Constitution, our Democracy, and our laws.

For a restaurant to have an appreciation day reminding the populace that marriage is designated as a contract between a man and a woman till death do you part..is unrealistic, unneeded, and discriminatory in today’s society. If anyone wants to know the church’s views on any issue, let them attend church and not a restaurant, drugstore, women's clinics, college infirmaries.

OMG: can you imagine the panic a boy must have checking out his condoms in a drugstore only to have the cashier refuse his sale because her relgion forbids the use of condoms?

 

MUST NOT?? So in liberal la la land owning a restaurant removes the individuals 1st Amendment Rights? That's um, very tolerant of you...

 

And yet, you have no qualms about elected public officials barring a business because they don’t like their political/religious views.....wow, just WOW.

 

I can't wait for these bigots to go bankrupt as more and more Americans reject their subsidizing of hatred.

 

Must not air their views? Is this what we have become in Obamerica?

You know what, if the people are upset, and don't want to agree with this resturant, than fine, they won't eat there.

Let the free market take its road.

What drives me nuts is listening to people like Rahm Emanuel makes comments that shows he believes in tolerance, while being intolerant to the views of The food chain owner.

And now they want to boycott. For what? to help the restaurant close, so thousands of more people can lose their job in Obama's (*)(*)(*)(*)ty economy?

 

Show me their bigotry. thanks

 

That's very patriotic of you to hope that thousands of people will lose their jobs in this economy...

 

What is unconstitutional? Have you read the Constitution?

Who is brainwashing who? What?

So are the rumors about Bert and Ernie true?

 

I am sorry, this is just stupid. The restaurant chain can have whatever beliefs they want. Jim Henson company can pull their toys all they want. This is America people, wake up!! I am pro gay marriage and think their views are bigoted, but they have a 100% right to have those views as long as they are not breaking the laws or infringing on legal rights. What is next? Are we going to try and tell churches what they can or cannot believe in?

 

Yeah, okay, this thread helped me make up my mind. This bisexual is eating at Chick-fil-a.

 

Flouting your religious views is fine, actually, just like assembling a boycott is.

It's not unconstitutional. What is, however, is blocking the construction of a business due to the owner's political views.

The bolded can already happen. Pharmacists have refused giving out birth control, for example.

Ultimately, how a business is run is mostly up to the business owners and management.

 

That will be next, its already happening with Obamacare and contraception.

 

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One reason it is wrong is that other people's right not to be harassed, persuaded, and intimidated by another's religious mania is similar to the warning of yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theatre. One needs to understand the concept behind that admonition.

Where one person's strident display of acute religiosity is brought into their place of business, becomes another person's victimization of their rights, such as: walking into a clinic for a test to be done and seeing a huge TV playing Fox News and being told that the station cannot be changed is a deprivation of another's rights. It is forced brainwashing in the current American theatre.

Too often in America today, the 'awarding' of a right to one person, means the taking away, or diminishing of another person's rights. ie:1) The USSC "awarding" the presidency to GW Bush by denying Al Gore's right to have his Fla. SC's ruling to have all ballots checked and counted. 2) The attempt to have school children solve social issues that adults themselves cultivated, by the act of busing these little children to schools far from home. 3) The attempt of republicans to deny women lawful female full services, equal rights under the Constitution, and denying her full control over her own body, by a series of misogynistic regulations designed to demean and denigrate her.

Only when every person is allowed full equality, which is the identical chance at making a success of their life without regard to their gender, sexual preference, ethnic heritage, or color of skin, will we have full equality for everyone. As it is now, the courts take away rights from some, and award it to others and call it justice.

We are a long way from full equality for everyone because we are a nation of "visuals"...it is what we see that decides for us how we view somebody, and how many rights they will have.

A very wise judge will insist that the prisoner come to court dressed in suit and tie because he does not want to see, or have the jury see, a prisoner shuffling in dressed in prison garb, as it will help, negatively, in deciding for everyone the guilt or innocence of that prisoner.

 

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The REAL question is: When does excessive questioning become a psychological fetish?.....

 

Wow, and noone in those "bible belt" states boycotted Muppets and Henson? Oh thats right...its only a small, loud, in your face , select group that stamps it's collective feet in the face of opposing beliefs...in the name of equality of course.

 

I was not a patron but will now eat there once per week

 

No, the real question is....when does excessive thread starting on the same subjects from huffpo over and over again, become a psychological fetish?

 

This is one of the most bizarre justifications for stomping on people's First Amendment rights that I have ever seen. Although it is pretty amusing.

 

No kidding. 4-5 new ones today. Heck if we wanted HuffPos slanted outlook on everything, we all know where it is.

 

No comparison. A political statement made by a CEO isn't akin to starting a riot or public panic. It's also not the same as harassment.

Not true either. A business owner has the right to keep the TV on whatever channel he feels like. If the customer doesn't like it, he can leave.

None of these analogies apply to a political statement voiced by a business owner. You're talking about government actions.

Again, you're talking about the state, not the private sector.

The most that the state can do is ensure that discrimination doesn't occur in hiring or in service. Beyond that, it's open.

 

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1) But by bringing their views into the business place and against a certain segment of our society they are breaking the law, and infringing on the legal rights of others to belong to another lifestyle rather than being denied marriage because of dislike for that other lifestyle, as well as to sit in a restaurant simply enjoying their waffle potatoes or Chick-fil-A sandwich.

2) Darn...and you were doing so well...

 

I'm sure Chick-Fil-A is loving all this free publicity!

 

I hope all tea partiers eat that godawful food to their fill. In a few years your numbers will be culled.

Meanwhile I expect this bigotted firm to go bankrupt everywhere by the loony south.

 

Chick Fil A sandwiches became a political symbol b/c the left made it into one.

End of discussion.

 

I'm lobbying to make you a bisexual primitivist-libertarian.