Chick-fil-A Flap Flips to Frat Food Fight
The latest Chic-fil-A controversy is beginning to take on the nature of a frat house food fight, according to some commentators on both sides of the issue, and calls for restraint have begun. Here's what's gone on in just the past few days:
• In a July 2 story published by Biblical Recorder and later reposted by Baptist Press, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy asserts his support for traditional marriage by saying the company was "guilty as charged" when asked about the opposition his company was facing for supporting traditional marriage.
• Actor Ed Helms and leading gay rights activists express outrage over Cathy's comment and suggest yet another boycott of the company's products.
• Last Friday Jim Henson and his company, saying their company embraces "diversity and Inclusiveness," announced they would no longer partner with Chick-fil-A.
• The National Organization for Marriage, along with former Gov. Mike Huckabee, try to rally pro-family supporters by encouraging them to eat at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, Aug. 1.
• And finally, elected officials in Boston and Chicago have vowed to block Chick-fil-A from building additional restaurants in their cities.
Needless to say, the issue is not only defined by culture but has drifted into the political spectrum with calls of action coming from both sides of the aisle.
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Huckabee wrote on his website, "No one is being asked to make signs, speeches or openly demonstrate. The goal is simple: 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."
Over 100,000 people have responded by saying they will show up to support Chick-fil-A.
Yet the tit-for-tat sparring between gay activists and pro-family supporters has turned out to be what some are calling an old-fashioned, college era food fight.
Dana Milbank, an opinion writer for The Washington Post, penned in a column Tuesday:
"Huckabee is starting this food fight for the spirit, not the body. Unfortunately, he is doing violence to both. His defense of the fast-food restaurant will make Chick-fil-A a fat target in the culture wars and will further divide Americans. Apparently, it isn't enough to be split on matters of politics; now we must choose sides between red and blue eateries, retail stores and consumer products."
But supporters on the other side of the counter say it wasn't Huckabee who started the fight, instead, pointing their fingers at pro-gay activists and even other retail giants such as Home Depot, JC Penny and General Mills for promoting their goods to the homosexual community and dismissing others who make up the larger majority of their customer base.
However, Milbank is also making the case that Cathy and Chick-fil-A are trying to retreat from their position, pointing to a statement the company made after the most recent controversy erupted.
"Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena," the company said after the news of Walt Disney's Jim Henson and Company severing ties with the fast-food giant.
But as writer George Rasley noted on Richard Viguerie's Conservative HQ, Chick-fil-A is still standing strong in the face of adversity.
"And by publicly affirming those biblically-based values, Mr. Cathy gave one of the most courageous professions of Christian faith we have heard in modern America – not because he is likely to suffer the kind of physical harm the fathers of the early Church faced, or that modern martyrs face in places like Iran, China and Sudan today," wrote Rasley.
"No, but Mr. Cathy is facing something that in its own way may be just as harsh -- the wrath of the leftwing media and Democrat politicians ready to pander to the radical homosexual agenda that quickly combined to call for Mr. Cathy's business to be banned from their fiefdoms and for him to be muzzled."
Yet with all this said, the food fight and the issues that linger with it will mostly likely continue for the foreseeable future.
