Former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee decreed Wednesday, August 1, to be “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” The former Republican governor of Arkansas says he “has been incensed at the vitriolic assaults on the Chick Fil-A company because the CEO, Dan Cathy, made comments recently in which he affirmed his view that the Biblical view of marriage should be upheld.”
Of course, not one word of that is accurate, not even that Dan Cathy is the CEO of Chick-Fil-A (his dad is), and if you’re standing in line waiting for your chicken sandwich and waffle fries, why not take a moment to learn about what Chick-fil-A really does, and — even if you’re opposed to same-sex marriage — what your money is buying.
Here are five reasons why Chick-fil-A isn’t what you think:
1) Chick-fil-A has donated at least $5 million to organizations (including a certified hate group) that, among other things, depict gay people as pedophiles, want to make “gay behavior” illegal, and even say gay people should be “exported” out of America.
Even if you oppose same-sex marriage, do you really want to support a company that advocates putting gay people in jail, or “exporting” them, just because they’re gay?
2) Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy didn’t merely say he supports traditional marriage. Dan Cathy said if you support gay marriage, you “are inviting God’s judgment on our nation,” and that we “shake our fist at Him” when we do. Dan Cathy also said same-sex marriage is the result of a “deprived” mind and called it ”twisted up kind of stuff.”
Even if you don’t support same-sex marriage, do you really think gay marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation”? Haven’t we all heard enough blame from those who claim to speak for the Lord, like after Katrina or, more recently, after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado?
3) Chick-fil-A supports organizations that have claimed they can change gay people into straight people — “pray away the gay” — despite the fact that practically every major medical organization has stated that this is not only impossible but dangerous and harmful.
Even if you don’t support same-sex marriage, do you support fake “science” that is known to harm the very people it claims to help?
4) The media keep saying Chick-fil-A has never discriminated, but the truth is that Chick-fil-A has been sued over a dozen times for employment discrimination. That’s what a leading business publication,Forbes, stated in 2007, when they also called Chick-fil-A a “cult” and reported that Chick-fil-A’s founder and CEO Truett Cathy said he wanted to hire married people because they are more industrious and productive. Truett Cathy has also said he would probably fire someone who “has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members.”
Even if you don’t support same-sex marriage, do you want to support what some call a “cult” whose CEO says he would fire employees for “being sinful”?
5) Chick-fil-A is just exercising their First Amendment rights by running a business based on the Bible, right? Wrong. There’s a line between the “free exercise of religion” and violating the law. If Chick-fil-A is violating the law by discriminating against gay people, or by firing women so that they can be “stay home” moms, as one woman who is suing Chick-fil-A says in court documents, that’s not exercising religious expression or free speech, and that’s not a First Amendment issue. It may be, if the court decides, a violation of the law.
Even if you don’t support same-sex marriage, do you want to support a company that might fire women to force them to be “stay home” moms against their will?
There are plenty of good restaurants that are happy to work hard for your hard-earned dollar. Why support a company that is working so hard to deny people their rights?
Image by Clotee Pridgen Allochuku
Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally published today at The Huffington Post.
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{ 5 comments }
"…what you money is buying."
Lost something?
because their breakfast chicken biscuit is de lic ous…
I understand the writers point but let's take it a step further. Wal Mart – how many of you reading this article shop at Wal Mart? How are they different than Chick-fil-a? They are far worse and on a global scale.
. They use slave labor to create cheap goods in foreign companies to sell to stupid American's who have been brainwashed into thinking they are saving money by shopping at Wal-Mart..a company that devastates local communities when they move in – they undersell small and large businesses in the area, bring in traffic, crime, pollution, pay low wages with few benefits, then when they decide to enlarge they leave behind a huge empty building that no one else can utilize. They don't pay taxes in the majority of communities that they invade. The second they are in and everyone else is out, they raise prices. So now you are paying for cheap shoddy goods at higher prices.
WalMart is also a company with a stanch conservative religious background.
So before you target ONE PRIVATE company because you don't like their policies, take a look at the other places that you shop. Don't think for one minute Chick Fil A, a private company btw who can hire and fire based on whatever criteria they want, is the only one out there with less than politically correct opinions and ways of doing business.
If you don't like the way a company is doing business, then don't spend your money there. Period. But get off the bully pulpit. Gay Marriage is not a human right which is why I have gotten disgusted with all of the rhetoric. It isn't really a right at all. It is a legal institution. An institution I might add, that give legal protections and benefits to a specific group of people – married people. This is discriminatory to every other single or non married couple, triad etc in the US. Where is our equality under the law?
Just like the other groups out there beating their breasts about their cause, the gay groups have now gone into the deep water of bullying to get their point across.
So now the rest of us who agreed with you on some level are just turning around in disgust at the tactics..the same tactics employed by those that want to keep you in the closet and unseen.
Think about that over your delicious breakfast chicken biscuit.
People seem fond of pointing to something worse in lieu of offering any sort of valid discussion points.
We're not talking about Wal Mart. This is about Chok Ful A.
A company that funds terrorism against gays in Africa. You want that with your sammich? I don't. Any more than I'd patronize Li'l Hitler's House of Pancakes knowing it funded death camps. When Wal Mart starts funding murderous campaigns in other countries, come back and you'll have a valid talking point.
Until then, your argument is no more valid than a Scientologist responding to criticism by crying and pointing at the Catholic Church's abuses.
really? they fund murderous campaigns in other countries? Not hardly. You might want to revisit the first sentence in your poorly worded response. Seems like you are talking about your own response here baby cakes.
As is usual with people totally swayed by the screaming headlines, you will just make something up to 'disprove' what others have to say.
PS I think you have chick-fil-a confused with the US government.
I think you should read where Cathy donates his money again.
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