A personal anecdote: the other day, a friend and I were talking about Chick-fil-A. He’s a progressive, ethically concerned guy and went there with his family for Dress Like a Cow Day or whatever its called. He called a friend of his to invite him, who refused to go because of the company’s anti-gay stance. I really love their sandwiches, so we were talking about the line of how much stuff we don’t like we should put up with from giant corporations, and I said that I thought Chick-fil-A was more pro-family values than decidedly anti-equality. Turns out, the company’s president Dan Cathy heard my mild defense and wanted to set the record straight in the Baptist Press:

He started off making some sense:

“We don’t claim to be a Christian business,” Cathy said in a recent visit to North Carolina…

“In that spirit … [Christianity] is about a personal relationship. Companies are not lost or saved, but certainly individuals are,” Cathy added.

Hey, Christians are allowed to own businesses, right? I’m a Christian, I just would prefer companies just stick to selling delicious sandwiches and not get all creepy and hateful.

Of course, Cathy didn’t stop there:

Some have opposed the company’s support of the traditional family. “Well, guilty as charged,” said Cathy when asked about the company’s position.

“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.

“We operate as a family business … our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that,” Cathy emphasized.

“We intend to stay the course,” he said. “We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

Sigh. How’s the chicken sandwich at Church’s? Anyone know if they’ll put a pickle on it?

This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2012.

The editor of the Tucson Weekly. I have no idea how I got here.

9 replies on “I Probably Shouldn’t Eat at Chick-fil-A Anymore”

  2. I could give a good god dam* if Chick-fil-A supports gays..or muslims, or anyone else.. I do however LOVE that chicken.

  3. Remind me what this is: “the biblical definition of the family unit.” I know guys have lots of wives in the old testament, but I don’t remember anything about same-sex parents. Also, is it a family unit if there are no kids?

  4. I stopped going there when I sat in the dining and read all the “family value” crap they have plastered everywhere. They have programs you can participate in that will help you be a better what ever it is you are (except gay, I guess.) But the food is good.

  5. Wow, if I owned a business, I would’t care about your sexual preference, religion, or if your from Mars. As long as your spending money, your welcome, unless your Irish. We don’t serve the Irish! Lol

  6. I don’t get the “wisdom” of businesses publicly supporting contentious issues. Why deliberately alienate your customer base…especially in difficult economic times? The homophobes (Chick-fil-A), The land-raping mine backers (An/Flores/McMahon) & republican supporters (Landeen) won’t see another dime of my money. It’s not like there aren’t hundreds of other restaurants in which to spend my discretionary income.

  7. Well, I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A, but this post definitely gives me reason never to venture in the door of the place.

    My former brother-in-law was a very conservative person and member of the Southern Baptist Church during much of his life. In his mid-50’s, he also came out and lived the remainder of his life as a Gay man in a very committed relationship.

    I often wondered if he was able to square his life with the homophobic religious group in which he’d been a member.

  9. When the one at El Con opened up, my wife applied. They called her in for an interview, by the end of which, she was sufficiently creeped-out enough not to want the job.

    She told me later, “I just wanted a job. I didn’t wanna join a cult.”

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