August 3, 2012

'I don't know how you live with yourself': CFO fired after verbally abusing young Chick-fil-A employee as gay rights protestors stage 'Same Sex Kiss Day' at restaurants

Thousands expected to flock to restaurant at Same Sex Kiss Day Bomb threat called into one Chick-fil-A Other branches being vandalized and staff verbally abused Nearly 700,000 people responded to 'Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day' on Wednesday as cars clogged drive-thru lanes across the nation Detroit Lions linebacker said he won't boycott even if they supported slavery because it 'tastes too good' Mayor Bloomberg supports free speech right of CEO Dan Cathy

PUBLISHED: 10:39 EST, 3 August 2012 | UPDATED: 16:08 EST, 3 August 2012

A Chick-fil-A protestor went to extreme lengths to show his disdain for the chain's anti-gay marriage stance - and ended up losing his job over it.

Adam Smith, the former CFO of an Arizona-based medical device manufacturer, decided to take matters into his own hands by targeting an employee at a drive-thru window, videoing it and uploading it on to YouTube.

In the video, which has already been viewed more then 150,000 times, Smith - who claims he is straight - explains what he is about to do as he waits in line for his free water.

His firing was reported on the same day as the counter-protest against Chick-fil-A's Appreciation Day as thousands of gay couples plan on flocking to restaurants to kiss.

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You're fired: In a video posted to YouTube, Adam Smith goes to the Chick-Fil-A drive-through, orders water and proceeds to bully the young female employee who serves him

Polite: The Chick-fil-A employee tells Smith it's her pleasure to serve him and to have a nice day despite his verbal abuse

When he gets to the window, he starts to all-out bully the young female employee behind the counter, who remains calm and polite throughout the whole exchange.

He said: 'I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here. I don’t understand it. This is a horrible corporation with horrible values.'

The girl tells him repeatedly to have a nice day and that it is a pleasure to serve him as well as saying: 'I'm staying neutral on this subject. My personal beliefs don't belong in the workplace.'

As he drives off he tells the worker: 'I'm a nice guy by the way, and I'm totally heterosexual. Just can't stand the hate. It's gotta stop guys, stand up.'

More...

After the video went viral, according to a MarketWire statement, Smith was fired from his job at Vante, Inc.

They released a statement saying: 'The actions of Mr Smith do not reflect our corporate values in any manner. Vante is an equal opportunity company with a diverse workforce, which holds diverse opinions.

Don't forget today is #chickfila kiss-in day - although most people won't look as good as

Girl on girl: Hundreds of same sex couples have already flocked to Chick-fil-A to kiss in protest

Backlash: Anti Chick-fil-A protestors hold signs outside a Hollywood branch after thousands of Americans turned out on Wednesday to show their appreciation for the chain

Banners: A gay couple stand outside Chick-fil-A to support their right to love each other just as much as a heterosexual couple would

Graffiti: Vandals at a Chick-fil-A in Torrance left a message on the restaurant on Friday during a week of protests in response to the company president's comments regarding same-sex marriage

YETA (Youth Empowered to Act): A group of LGBT youth leaders between the ages of 14 and 24, protested the opening of a new Chick-fil-a franchise in Laguna Hills, California

An anti-Chick-fil-A protestor holds a sign outside a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant, August 1, 2012 in Hollywood, California.

Hate: The protestors came out in force today for the Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A's across the nation

Playing with words: Thus Chick-fil-A protestor uses her smartphone to tell the world exactly what she thinks of the fast food chain

'We respect the right of our employees and all Americans to hold and express their personal opinions, however, we also expect our company officers to behave in a manner commensurate with their position and in a respectful fashion that conveys these values of civility with others.'

Today, protestors are staging a backlash in response to the hundreds of thousands of supporters who flocked to branches across the nation on Wednesday - setting record sales on what was dubbed Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

A Facebook page set up to organize the event, National Same Sex Kissing Day, called on participants to visit their local Chick-fil-A's at 8pm – and make out.

The movement motto, 'Kiss More Chiks', plays on the restaurant's most famous ad slogan: 'Eat Mor Chiken'.

Kiss-in organizer Carly McGehee said in an interview with GLAAD: 'We need to show not just the Chick-fil-A company, but the rest of the country, that our numbers are great.

'By participating in the kiss-in, thousands of people will get out of the house and show their support for LGBT equality. This is what will make the biggest impact.'

It's Josh Crews and Grant Clarke in downtown Chicago. They're boyfriends.

Jimmy and Sebastion take a moment to kiss at the Lindbergh Chick-fil-A as part of national kiss-in day

Kissathon: More couples show support with their lips

Forever love: Same sex couple Shellie Crandall and Pam Buchmeyer kiss outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant on August 3, 2012 in Dallas, Texas

Message: Gay couple Jim Fortier, left, and Mark Toomajian kiss each other during a gay and lesbian kiss in protest outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Decatur, Georgia

A painting crew finishes painting over a vandalized wall that vandals had scrawled

A painting crew finishes painting over the vandalized wall that vandals had scrawled Tastes Like Hate on at a Chik-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, California, right, as the Same Sex Kiss Days kicks off early

Cute couple: Hundreds of kissing photos have appeared on Instagram as the Same Sex Kiss Day kicks off

Despite the 8pm start time, hundreds of protestors started out early and began to tweet pictures of them holding banners, rainbow flags and simply just kissing their same-sex partner. Up to 15,000 are expected to rally around at tonight's kiss off.

A number of other branches reported criminal activity by those not in support of CEO Dan Cathy's belief in the 'biblical definition of marriage'.

Fox News reported that a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Martinsburg, West Virginia, was evacuated after someone called in a bomb threat which was later deemed to be a hoax.

In South Carolina, a man was arrested after he blocked the drive-thru with his vehicle and vandals at a Chick-Fil-A in Torrance painted a message on the side of the restaurant today saying 'Tastes Like Hate' with a picture of a cow.

'SH*T IS AMAZING...TASTES TOO GOOD' - NFL STAR SUPPORTS CHAIN

Detroit Lions linebacker Justin Durant used Twitter to weigh in on the Chick-fil-A gay marriage saga.

He said he was 'shaking his head' over the controversy and asked his followers: 'Chick-fil-A not even open on Sunday how people shocked that the owner feels that way?'

He added: 'So people not gon [sic] get the best chicken sammich [sic] and lemonade on the planet because of a personal belief? Word?'

When someone asked whether he would boycott the restaurant if they came out in support of slavery. He said the chicken is 'too tasty.'

The Muppets also pulled their support from the company, triggering a toy recall, and Boston Mayor Tom Menino vowed to block the chicken sandwich maker from setting up shop in his city.

Detroit Lions linebacker Justin Durant caused controversy by weighing into the row on Twitter.

He asked his followers what was happening with his favorite fast food chain. When he was filled in on the scandal he said he was 'shaking his head' over it and asked: 'Chick-Fil-A not even open on Sunday how people shocked that the owner feels that way [sic]'.

When asked if he would boycott it if they supported slavery he responded: 'Chicken too tasty.'

Mayor Bloomberg has also weighed into the debate and voiced his support of the restaurant chain and the CEO's freedom of speech.

On his weekly WOP radio show, he said: 'It isn't the right thing to do and it isn't what America stands for. And those people who don't like (Chick-fil-A) don't understand their rights were protected by people who took a difficult position in the past and stood by it.

'They stood up so everybody else would be free.'

The mayor, a staunch advocate of marriage equality, continued: 'I don't agree with this guy. I don't agree with the position of the Catholic Church.

'That doesn't mean I don't have an enormous amount of respect for the two Cardinals we have here and the clergy and the people who are Catholic.

'What's for sure is that government cannot in the United States, in America, under the Constitution, be run where you have a litmus test for the personal views of somebody when they want something in the commercial world.'

Let the kissing commence: Gay couples flock to their nearest Chick-fil-A

In your face: Gay rights groups are hoping to combat Wednesday's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day with a same-sex kissing protest at stores across the country

Supporters: This scene, people standing in long lines to patronize a Chick-fil-A in Fresno, California, was played out at the chain's restaurants across the nation

Waiting: The drive-through lane in Huntsville, Alabama, circles the parking lot twice hundreds of people waited for their turn at a chicken sandwhich

Huckabee's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day was a wildly successful national movement -- with nearly 700,000 people pledging to attend on Facebook.

Photos emerged from across the nation -- from Texas to Colorado to California and Chicago -- of patrons waiting for hours to support the company.

'It's gone beyond anything I could have imagined,' Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, told Fox News.

'Every one of (the stores) that I know have reported record, historic sales yesterday... A lot of the stores ran out of chicken before the end of the day.'

Chick-fil-A says it had nothing to do with planning the rally that brought customers to its stores in droves, but it appreciated the business.

POLL RESULTS

Should Chick-fil-A be free to voice their support for the biblical definition of marriage?

Yes89%
No11%

Thank you for voting

Click to view yesterday's poll results

'We are very grateful and humbled by the incredible turnout of loyal Chick-fil-A customers on August 1 at Chick-fil-A restaurants around the country,' the company said in a statement.

It added: 'While we don't release exact sales numbers, we can confirm reports that it was a record-setting day.'

Organizers don't recommend eating at Chick-fil-A and are encouraging their supporters to visit Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Despite their efforts, the protest is unlikely to come close to matching the impact of Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day -- only 11,000 Facebook users have said they plan to attend 'National Same Sex Kiss Day.'

Not all gay people support the boycott, though. A 20-year-old gay man, who said he is a liberal who supports President Barack Obama, wrote a piece for CNN iReport in which he defended Cathy's right to oppose gay marriage.

Mockery: The Facebook group for the National Same Sex Kissing Day plays off the Chick-fil-A slogan 'eat mor chikin' with the motto 'kiss mor chicks'

Show of faith: A pair of nuns were photographed walking out of a Chick-fil-A on Wednesday loaded with food, milkshakes and iced tea

The man said he planned to continue eating at Chick-fil-A because he thinks the reaction of gay rights groups has been overblown -- and their southern-style chicken sandwiches taste good, too.

As opponents regroup, Chick-fil-A is finding even more supporters -- including the owner of competing fast food restaurants.

Jim Furman, the biggest Wendy's franchise owner in the world, posted 'We stand with Chick-fil-A' on the signs outside several of his restaurants in North and South Carolina, reported WBTV in Charlotte.

The Wendy's corporate office issued a statement distancing the company from Mr Furman, saying 'we are proud to serve customers of varied races, backgrounds, cultures and sexual orientation, with different beliefs and values.'

Mr Furman took the signs down after speaking with Wendy's officials.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Francis George, the leader of the Archdiocese of Chicago, also sided with Chick-fil-A when he criticized Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for blasting the company's anti-gay marriage stance.

The mayor said the chain's values 'are not Chicago's values' and said he did not welcome plans to build additional restaurants in Chicago.

Face off: When Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that Chick-fil-A's values 'are not Chicago's values,' Cardinal Francis George said the mayor's view doesn't represent the Catholics who support 'traditional marriage'

Controversy: CEO Dan Cathy drew ire from gay rights groups with his comments about same sex marriage

That opinion was shared and repeated by the mayors of San Francisco and Boston, as well.

Emanuel's words, along with a vow by Alderman Proco 'Joe' Moreno to block any expansion in the city, drew Cardinal George's ire.

'I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city?' he wrote on the Chicago Archdiocese blog on Sunday.

A church spokeswoman said the cardinal was standing up for 'religious freedom' and that he has long spoken out against same-sex marriage.

Cathy, the son of the company's founder, was quoted in a Baptist newspaper on July 16 saying he was 'guilty as charged' when asked about his opposition to gay marriage.

He later told a Christian radio show: '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 try to redefine what marriage is about.'

Cathy says Chick-fil-A isn't a Christian company -- however its stores are all closed on Sunday, even in airports and shopping malls, and his company biography says the purpose of his business is to 'glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.'

Opposition: Gay rights supporter Trey King stood outside the Chick-fil-A in Hollywood, California, on Wednesday with a rainbow flag to protest the chain's opposition to gay marriage

Picketing: The massive crowds drew handfuls of gay rights protestors to Chick-fil-A on Wednesday

Chick-fil-A also puts its money where its mouth is, donating $5 million to Christian groups between 2003 and 2010.

The company supported groups like the Family Research Council, which lobbies Congress on a host of conservative social issues -- including the prohibition of gay marriage.

Chick-fil-A, a $4.5 billion company, has made the Cathy family very wealthy. Dan Cathy, who runs operations, owns one-third of the family business -- making him a billionaire.

August 2, 2012

‘CHOKE TO DEATH ON THAT LGBT HATING CHICKEN’: SEE HOW THE LEFT IS REACTING TO ‘CHICK-FIL-A APPRECIATION DAY’

Posted on August 1, 2012 at 5:37pm by Jason Howerton
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So, how is the left reacting to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day“ today? Well, with a lot of intolerance, actually.

Some of the restaurant’s fiercest critics took to Twitter to voice their opposition to the outpouring of public support that Chick-fil-A is seeing today. Many of the tweets involve wishing death upon anyone who eats at the fast food chain today. Others are even more disgusting and include vulgar profanities, which we chose not to include in our rundown.

Here are some of the most vile tweets of the day:

(Source: Twitter)

Featured image courtesy of Twitchy.com.

COLLEGE LECTURER BERATES LOCAL CHICK-FIL-A EMPLOYEE AT THE DRIVE-THRU: ‘HORRIBLE CORPORATION’

Posted on August 2, 2012 at 12:15pm by Mike Opelka
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Not all of the half-million plus people who reportedly visited Chick-fil-A restaurants on August 1st were there to support the company. There were a few folks who stopped by to protest the company. One such protester is Adam M Smith.

College Lecturer Adam Smith Confronts Chick fil A Employee at Driver Thru

Mr. Smith is an Adjunct Lecturer at Eller College in Arizona and he also is theCFO of Vante, a catheter manufacturing company.

Apparently, Adam Smith is not a fan of the head of Chick-fil-A and he decided to let the company know how he felt. Smith sat in the drive through lane of a local franchise, intending to only order “free water” and give the company a piece of his mind.

In the video, initially titled ”Reduce $’s to Chick-Fil-A’s Hate Groups” – these points are worth noting:

The college students that Smith sees off in the distance and speculates are getting ready to stage a sit-in, were most likely waiting to get into the movie theater they were standing in front of.

He tells the young woman working the window, “This is a horrible corporation with horrible values.”

He also goes out of his way to stress ,”I’m a nice guy, by the way… totally heterosexual. Not a gay in me, I just can’t stand the hate.”

Not long after Smith posted the video on YouTube, it was removed.

However, other web users had already spotted the clip, copied it and reposted it, citing the ”Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing United States Entrepreneurship Act of 2007.”

We offer the re-posted video for your viewing pleasure.

The Blaze has reached out to Smith by phone and email. As of this writing, we have not heard from him.

July 27, 2012

Same-Sex "Marriage" Is Not a Civil Right

Second Quarter 2004

by James W. Skillen

A gay-marriage advocate in Boston explained to a radio reporter that marriage is a civil matter, not a church affair. Those who want church weddings can have them, but marriage is a matter of civil law. And since it is unconstitutional to deny equal civil rights to citizens, it is unconstitutional to deny to homosexual couples the right to marry.

At this important moment in the U.S. debate over same-sex "marriage" and the likelihood of a long campaign to try to add a marriage amendment to the Constitution, it is important to evaluate the grounds of the arguments. In particular, we need to be clear about what constitutes a civil right.

It is certainly true that the contention over marriage is about civil law. Marriage law has long been a state matter, and in the United States that has meant, literally, a state rather than a federal matter. In any case, the law has until now taken for granted that marriage is an institutional bond between a man and a woman. Moreover, marriage is something people of all faiths and no faith engage in. Churches, synagogues, and mosques may bless marriages but they do not create the institution. In that sense the question of marriage is not first of all a religious matter in the sense in which most people use the word "religion."

However, to insist that the question of marriage is a matter of civil law and not first of all a religious matter does not take us very far. After all, the argument is about what government ought to do about keeping or changing the legal definition of marriage. The debate is not between husbands and wives within the bond of traditional marriage—like a court case over divorce and child custody. No, this debate is about whether the law that now defines marriage is itself good or bad, right or wrong. And to join that debate one must appeal, by moral argument, to grounds that transcend the law as it now exists. In that regard, the question of marriage is not about a civil right at all. It is about the nature of reality and interpretations of reality that precede the law.

Those who now argue that same-sex couples should be included, as a matter of civil right, within the legal definition of marriage are appealing to the constitutional principles of equal protection and equal treatment. But this is entirely inappropriate for making the case for same-sex "marriage." To argue that the Constitution guarantees equal treatment to all citizens, both men and women, does not say anything about what constitutes marriage, or a family, or a business enterprise, or a university, or a friendship. An appeal for equal treatment would certainly not lead a court to require that a small business enterprise be called a marriage just because two business partners prefer to think of their business that way. Nor would equal treatment of citizens before the law require a court to conclude that those of us who pray before the start of auto races should be allowed to redefine our auto clubs as churches.

The simple fact is that the civil right of equal treatment cannot constitute social reality by declaration. Civil rights protections function simply to assure every citizen equal treatment under the law depending on what the material dispute in law is all about. Law that is just must begin by properly recognizing and distinguishing identities and differences in reality in order to be able to give each its legal due.

One kind of social relationship that government recognizes, for example, is a free contract by which two or more parties agree to carry out a transaction or engage in some kind of activity. Let's say you contract with me to paint your house. The law of contract does not define ahead of time what might be contracted; it simply clarifies the legal obligations of the contracting parties and the consequences if the contract is broken. Governments and lawyers and the law do not create the people, the house, the paint, and my desire to paint your house for a price that you want to pay. The point is that even in contract law, the law plays only a limited role in the relationship. The law encompasses the relationship only in a legal way.

If someone wants to argue that two people who have not in the past been recognized as marriage partners should now be recognized as marriage partners, one must demonstrate that marriage law (not civil rights law) has overlooked or misidentified something that it should not have overlooked or misidentified. For thousands of years, marriage law has concerned itself with a particular kind of enduring bond between a man and a woman that includes sexual intercourse—the kind of act that can (but does not always) lead to the woman's pregnancy. A homosexual relationship, regardless of how enduring it is as a bond of loving commitment, does not and cannot include sexual intercourse leading to pregnancy. Thus it is not marriage.

The much disputed question of whether same-sex relationships are morally good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, is beside the point at this stage of legal consideration. The first question is about identity and difference. This is the material legal matter of properly recognizing and identifying what exists and distinguishing between marriages and auto clubs, between schools and banks, between friendships and multinational corporations. It has nothing to do with civil rights.

To recognize in law the distinct character of a marriage relationship, which entails sexual intercourse, involves no discrimination of a civil rights kind against those whose bonds do not include sexual intercourse. Those who choose to live together in life-long homosexual relationships; or brothers and sisters who live together and take care of one another; or two friends of the same sex who are not sexually involved but share life together in the same home—all of these may be free to live as they do, and they suffer no civil rights discrimination by not being identified as marriages. There is no civil rights discrimination against an eight-year-old youngster who is denied the right to enter into marriage. There is no civil rights discrimination being practiced against a youngster who is not allowed the identity of a college student because she is not qualified to enter college. There is no civil-rights discrimination involved when the law refuses to recognize my auto club as a church. A marriage and a homosexual relationship are two different kinds of relationships and it is a misuse of civil rights law to use that law to try to blot out the difference between two different kinds of things.

The question behind marriage, in other words, is a structural one that precedes lawmaking. The argument about the structural identity of marriage is not a legal argument about how people should be treated within the bonds of that structure. Rather, it is about whether homosexual relationships should be identified as having the structure of marriage, and only after that can civil rights considerations emerge about how citizens should be treated fairly with respect to marriage.

Those who want homosexual relationships to be redefined as marriages say that many aspects of their relationships are like marriage—having sexual play, living together, loving one another, etc.—and therefore they should be allowed to call their relationships marriages and should be recognized in the law as marriage partners. But this cannot be a proper legal matter until the empirical case has been made that a homosexual partnership and a marriage are indistinguishable. Otherwise, the appeal amounts to nothing more than a request that homosexual partners be allowed to call themselves what they want to call themselves regardless of the differences that exist in reality. The answer they want is for law making and adjudicating authorities to change the law based on the principle that reality is defined by the will and declarations of individuals, all of whom should be treated without discrimination.

But here, you see, is the sleight of hand. The appeal now being made for homosexual marriage rights is not an appeal for judges and lawmakers to reconsider past empirical judgments about similarities and differences between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Rather, it is an appeal for judges and lawmakers to ignore those distinctions in order not to deny citizens the right to call things what they want to call them. It is a version of an appeal for the protection of free speech, and in this case it is a demand that the speech of particular persons carry the authority to define the structure of reality without regard to the basis of past legal judgments. The antidiscrimination principle is appealed to not in order to show that some married couples have previously been denied the recognition of their marriage. Rather the antidiscrimination principle is being used to ask that no citizen be denied the right to call something what he or she wants to call it.

If homosexual relationships are, in this manner, legally recognized as marriages, no realities will change. Heterosexual marriage partners will still be able to engage in sexual intercourse and potentially procreate children; homosexual partners will still not be able to engage in such intercourse. Pregnancy will still be possible only by implanting a male sperm in a female egg, whether that is done by sexual intercourse inside or outside of marriage, or by in vitro fertilization, or by implanting male sperm in the uterus of a woman not married to the man whose sperm are being used. The only thing that will change is that the law will mistakenly use the word "marriage" to refer to two different kinds of sexually intimate human relationships.

If this happens, we will need to pay close attention to the consequences. Judges and public officials will then be required to recognize as a marriage any sexually Intimate bond between two people who want to call themselves married. Which means that there will no longer be any basis for distinguishing legally between a heterosexual union and a homosexual relationship. Which means henceforth that there will be no legal basis for restrictions against a homosexual couple obtaining children in any way they choose, for such restrictions would constitute discrimination. And it will mean that when a mature mother and son, or father and daughter, or trio or quartet of partners come to the courts or to the marriage-license bureau to ask that their sexually active relationship be recognized as marriage, there will be no legal grounds of a non-arbitrary kind to reject the requests. Because if it is now arbitrary and unjust to recognize heterosexual marriage as something exclusive and different from homosexual relationships, then it will be arbitrary and unjust not to grant the request of other partners to call their sexually intimate and enduring relationships marriage.

But, of course, since legal declarations cannot turn reality into something it cannot become, a variety of conundrums, contradictions, and anomalies will inevitably arise. And the only way to resolve them will be to revise the law so it squares with, and does justice to, reality. If, that is, anyone is interested in crafting the law to do justice to reality.

July 26, 2012

inHome » Top Stories » Rahm: “Chick-fil-A Values Are Not Chicago Values”

Rahm: “Chick-fil-A Values Are Not Chicago Values”

Jul 25, 2012

By Todd Starnes

Officials in at least three cities have vowed to block efforts to open Chick-fil-A restaurants after the company’s president told reporters that he supported the traditional definition of marriage – and warned that redefining marriage might bring God’s judgment on the nation.

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“Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. “They disrespect our fellow neighbors and residents.”

Emanuel was vowing his support for Alderman Proco Moreno’s announcement that he would block construction of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in his district.

“If you are discriminating against a segment of the community, I don’t want you in the First Ward,” he told the newspaper.

Chick-fil-A is privately owned by the Cathy family. The company president, Dan Cathy, drew the wrath of gay rights advocates and supporters when he made recent statements that some have alleged are anti-gay.

Cathy told Baptist Press that the company was unapologetically in favor of traditional marriage.

“Guilty as charged,” he said. “We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

In a separate interview on the Ken Coleman Show — Cathy suggested that the nation could face God’s wrath over the redefinition of marriage.

“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,’” Cathy said. “I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is all about.”

Alderman Moreno called Cathy’s comments “bigoted” and “homophobic.”

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“Because of this man’s ignorance, I will now be denying Chick-fil-A’s permit to open a restaurant in the First Ward,” he announced.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino was the first to announce that the Atlanta-based company would not be welcomed in his city.

“You can’t have a business in the City of Boston that discriminates against a population,” he told the Boston Globe. “We’re an open city. We’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion.”

And Mountain View, Calif, a bedroom community of San Francisco, has temporarily blocked the chicken chain from opening.

A homosexual couple spearheaded an effort to launch a zoning challenge.

“It could be Mother Teresa that owns it and it would be a bad place,” resident David Speakman told SFGate.com. “But because it was a bunch of bigots, it gave us an extra nudge.”

With the help of friends, a gay South Bay couple has at least temporarily blocked the very Christian-minded Chick-fil-A

The company’s position on traditional marriage notwithstanding, threats to ban the company have drawn fire from editorial pages across the nation.

The Los Angeles Times condemned the decision, calling it far more troubling than Chick-fil-A’s support of traditional marriage.

“Public officials have a responsibility to carry out their ministerial tasks fairly and evenhandedly – and to uphold the principle of free speech – whether or not they like a business executive’s social or political stances,” the Times opined.

The Boston Globe wondered “which part of the First Amendment does Menino not understand? A business owner’s political or religious beliefs should not be a test for the worthiness of his or her application for a business license.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin said “Boston’s Founding Fathers must be steaming in their graves.”

“When an elected public official wields the club of government against a Christian business in the name of “tolerance,” it’s not harmless kid stuff,” Malkin wrote. “It’s chilling.”

Meanwhile, thousands of Christians are mobilizing efforts to support Chick-fil-A – led by Fox News Channel host and former Ark. Governor Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee has declared August 1^st as Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

“Let’s affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee said the company has come under attack from militant homosexuals and is being “smeared by vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left.”

“The militant homosexual advocates have launched an all out assault on Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A,” he said. “The attempts to hurt or destroy Chick-fil-A are nothing short of economic bullying.”

Donald Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association, is backing Huckabee’s efforts saying he hoped it would generate the largest one-day sales in the company’s history.

“I have been incensed at the vitriolic assaults on the Chick-fil-A company,” Wildmon wrote in an email. “It’s a great American story that is being smeared by vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, was especially disturbed by the actions of Boston’s mayor.

“This is really outrageous when you see this is the train that follows same sex marriage,” Perkins told Fox News. “This idea of the loss of religious freedom – the freedom of speech — and it’s on perfect display in Boston with the intolerance of this mayor.”

Perkins noted that Americans have overwhelmingly endorsed the traditional definition of marriage – 32 times in 32 states.

“Chick-fil-A is in the mainstream, he said. “The mayor of Boston is in the minority.”

“It’s about forcing Americans who do not agree with this agenda to comply and if a business dare step outside of the PC lines they will be attacked just as we are seeing Chick-fil-A being attacked,” Perkins added
.

July 25, 2012

Of massacres & media myths

By GABRIEL MALOR

Last Updated: 10:53 PM, July 23, 2012

Media assumptions that violence is right-wing are routine — and routinely wrong.

On Friday morning, Brian Ross of ABC News speculated on live TV that James Holmes, the accused killer in Aurora, Colo., was a member of the Tea Party. A few hours later, Ross posted a short apology online; Holmes had no Tea Party connection.

Ross’ unfounded speculation wasn’t unusual (although the speed of his apology was). This was merely the latest case of media commentators jumping to the conclusion that violent attrocities should be attributed to members of the political right. Let’s look back at how often the media has falsely invoked Tea Partiers and other “right-wing nut jobs” in the past few years.

* September 2009: The discovery of hanged census-taker Bill Sparkman in rural Kentucky fueled media speculation that he’d been killed by anti-government Tea Partiers. In fact, he’d killed himself and staged his corpse to look like a homicide so his family could collect on life insurance.

* February 2010: Joe Stack flew his small plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. The media immediately suggested that the anti-tax rhetoric of the Tea Party led to the attack. In fact, Stack’s suicide note quoted the Communist Manifesto.

* That same month, a professor at the University of Alabama, Amy Bishop, shot and killed three colleagues at a faculty meeting. The gun-loving Tea Party came under immediate suspicion. But Bishop was a lifelong Democrat and Obama donor.

* March 2010: John Patrick Bedell shot two Pentagon security officers at close range. The media went wild with speculation that a right-wing extremist had reached the end of his rope. Bedell turned out to be a registered Democrat and 9/11 Truther.

* May 2010: New York authorities disarmed a massive car bomb in Times Square. Mayor Bloomberg immediately speculated that the bomber was someone upset about the president’s new health-care law. The media trumpeted the idea that crazed conservatives had (again, they implied) turned to violence. In fact, the perp was Faisal Shahzad, an Islamic extremist.

* August 2010: Amidst the debate over the Ground Zero Mosque, Michael Enright stabbed a Muslim cab driver in the neck. It was immediately dubbed an “anti-Muslim stabbing,” with “rising Islamophobia” on the political right to blame. In fact, Enright, a left-leaning art student, had worked with a firm that produced a pro-mosque statement.

* September 2010: James Lee, 43, took three hostages at the Discovery Channel’s headquarters in Maryland. The media speculation was unstoppable: Lee was surely a “climate-change denier” who’d resorted to violence. Oops: He was an environmentalist who viewed humans as parasites on the Earth.

* January 2011: Jared Lee Loughner went on a rampage in Tucson, Ariz. Again the media knew just who to blame: the Tea Party and its extremist rhetoric. In fact, Loughner was mostly apolitical — a conspiracy theorist who, to date, has been judged too mentally incompetent to stand trial.

The media’s habitual blaming of the political right is endemic and incurable. Media figures sincerely believe the right wing is violent, so naturally assume that violent people must be right-wing. This won’t be the last time they make that mistake.

Gabriel Malor is a lawyer and blogger in Washington, DC.Twitter: @gabrielmalor