While I was celebrating a friend’s birthday yesterday at the happiest place on earth (with seemingly fewer happy people this summer than in past years), Glenn Reynolds linked and quoted from a blogger who offered a nice succinct, synopsis of an emerging consensus on the Chick-Fil-A hullabaloo:
Among pretty much everyone with a civil libertarian, or just plain libertarian, background, the verdict on the Chick-Fil-A furor is the same: while private persons and groups are within their rights to boycott a business, it’s outrageous and dangerous for government officials to threaten to use regulation to keep the fast-food chain out of their cities because they disapprove of its president’s anti-gay-marriage views.
Exactly. Exactly. Read the whole thing.
Do wonder yet again why Democratic politicians were so eager to attack this private company for the opinions of its president. And to do so when they had no evidence that the company had ever discriminated against an employee because he was gay or denied service to or otherwise denigrated a customer because of his sexual orientation.
Left mayors boycotting CFA are cowards. Islam is much more ‘anti-gay marriage’ than Christians, yet I don’t see Rahm moving to boycott Muslims or CAIR – oh, wait.. he’s welcoming Farakhan for lunch! What a hypocrite.
When’s the last time CFA refused or gave substandard service to anyone gay? Waiting for answer from the left *crickets chirping*
And you are 100% absolutely right! Since when is it OK for any elected official to interject into someones business based on their religion – isn’t that the whole purpose of ‘separation of church and state’? Isn’t Rahm doing exactly what they accuse the right of trying to do… and that is interjecting their religious views into public policy and law? Isn’t that the very definition of a Theocracy?!
Among pretty much everyone with a civil libertarian = leanng republican. Not a single Democratic voice in favour of Mr Cathy, the obama supporters went on trashing ‘homophibians’ and Sarah Palin as usual
Yet, the same people who are performing the Ritual of Outrage (TM) over ChickFilA a year or so ago were just as fervently supporting the Ground Zero Mosque. Anyone recall the Islamic position on gay marriage off the top of your head? (Pun intended.)
In all the noise and fury, I haven’t seen the relevant fact of “…does Chick-a-Filet respect and obey the employment and public accommodation laws in jurisdictions where G/L anti-discrimination laws are on the books?”
I would assume the answer is “yes” since they do operate here in New Jersey where we have comprehensive rights legislation, and the same being true in Bloomberg’s NYC. As long as they respect the law and their G/L employees, I don’t have a problem with their operating here. Not to say that I would buy their sandwich-offerings, but that MY choice.
Once again, it’s worth pointing out that–unlike, say, Starbucks [with limited exceptions]–all Chick-Fil-A outlets are independently owned & operated. So it’s up to the individual owners to comply with state and local laws (including applying for those business licenses some cities would rather not give them).
If the Cathy family (Truett, Dan, Trudy, Bubba) are too ignorant to realize that their operation is no longer just a few family-owned restaurants in Southern locales any more, then that’s their problem. But it’s the owner-operators I feel sorry for in this whole mess. Many have clearly stated they are not homophobic and that LGBTQXYZ persons are welcome in their restaurants, but are still forced to defend the actions of the tone-deaf CEO—and put up with the potentially hateful antics of misguided protestors in the coming days.
Ted B. @3: you’re missing out. Chick-Fil-A is good…
“But it’s the owner-operators I feel sorry for in this whole mess.”
If in america, saying that you favour traditional marriage and that you are worried for the future creates a ‘whole mess’ then I believe you are on the path to third reich.
I hear a lot of americans making fun of russians (back in the days and nowadays) but the truth is that posting on facebook that you are in favour of traditional marriage can get you fired in USA, not in russia.
If you are not deeply disturbed by this, I don’t know what can. I often fear of a backlash by simply stating that I have a mother and a father… I might be mistaken for a homophibians.
Barney´s Beanery in West Hollywood prior to 1970 and then off and on until 1984 used to have a sign its restaurant that said FAGOTS (sic) STAY OUT. Has anybody seen such a sign in any of the Chic Fil A´s units? Govenment is overstepping its boundaries telling us where and what we can eat. As for me, I will not patronize any of there stores, nor KFC, Pioneer, or Pollo Campero. I don´t like chicken. Give me a hamburger or a cheese steak sandwich any day.
It also needs to be said that, historically, gay business owners catering to predominantly gay clientele had to fight against essentially the same type of government overreach that some idiot politicos are threatening Chick-Fil-A with.
For example, the selective and discriminatory use of arcane zoning laws against some businesses, but not others. (I’ve read that Virginia once had a law that prohibited the serving of alcoholic beverages in premises “where homosexuals are known to congregate”.)
Those laws, along with the unwritten ones, are the reason that–just one example–many of the early gay bars in NYC were owned by the Mafia and leased at loan-shark-style rates to the proprietors; including the original incarnation of the Stonewall Inn.