Anti-Gay Pastor Scott Lively Calls For Boycott Of Chick-fil-A
Pastor Scott Lively is calling for a boycott of Chick-fil-A.
In 2012, Dan Cathy, the president and COO of the giant Chick-fil-A fast-food retailer, gave an interview in which he said he was “guilty as charged” for being “very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.” Cathy spent the next year being the golden boy of the religious right, after making even more biblically-based anti-gay comments, like, “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’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”
Soon, every religious right wing nut, from Sarah Palin to Mike Huckabee to the National Organization For Marriage was out supporting Dan Cathy and buying as many Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches as they could eat.
Huckabee even created a Chick-fil-A appreciation day that August, because he was “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, Cathy isn’t the CEO, but facts never got in Mike Huckabee’s way.)
Recently, Cathy noted that it was a “mistake” to put his personal, biblical beliefs into the public square while speaking in his role as one of the heads of his family’s business, Chick-fil-A.
Today, Pastor Scott Lively writes that Dan Cathy “became a great hero to Bible-believing Christians by refusing to back down when the homo-fascists demanded he retract pro-family statements in 2012.”
In a column titled “Dan Cathy Takes The Mark Of The Beast” at Matt Barber‘s new ultra-conservative religious right tabloid, BarbWire, Lively writes that while that “headline is not true,” (then why print it, Matt?) Cathy “has done something that suggests he might be willing to take [the mark of the beast] if faced with that choice.”
The mark of the beast is often associated with the anti-Christ, or other spiritual anti-Christian beings, and extreme Christianists often associate everything, from barcodes and microchips to business licenses with it.
How quickly the religious right turns on its own. Cathy didn’t say he supports same-sex marriage, nor did he denounce his belief in “traditional marriage.”
All he said was that he understands that “others feel very different” from the way he feels, and added, “I respect their opinion.â€
For that, Scott Lively and Matt Barber’s BarbWire try to suggest Dan Cathy has earned the “mark of the beast,” or whatever — what do you call it when you print a headline that says that, then renounce it in your opening sentence?
Lively, who, as you know is on trial for crimes against humanity in a U.S. federal court for antigay “work” in Uganda, also says in his op-ed today:
Nobody knows better than I do the price that one pays for standing up to the LGBT bullies. They are not only vindictive and relentless, they are also very creative in their methods of harassment. And there is an entire army of them ready to pounce on anyone who crosses them. I am absolutely certain that they tried their best to make Dan Cathy’s life a constant, living hell since 2012.
…
I am convinced that God is using the homosexual issue as a test of believers all over the world.
…I’m not saying that Dan Cathy isn’t saved, but he has certainly failed the stress test, and failed the Bible-believing Christian remnant everywhere, by surrendering to the “gay†bullies. How long before we see Chick Fil A running “gayâ€-friendly commercials as penance for Cathy‘s “homophobia?â€
Lively closes with this:
“In my mind’s eye I used to see the Mark of the Beast as a black dot on the back of the hand. Now it looks more like a Chik Fil A [sic] sandwich. I’ll never buy another one, and I hope you won’t either.”
Religious liberty is becoming bastardized by the religious right.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
