The fallout from the controversial interview given by Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy over anti-gay comments continues to build. While most business leaders work hard to keep their political and religious views from affecting customers or their business, Cathy came out swinging with comments saying that he runs the company according to Biblical commands and that he views gay marriage as a sin. The result has been national boycott, store protests, and most recently moves in major cities like Chicago to bar the restaurant. The suggested legislation in Chicago would be in my view unconstitutional. Despite our disagreement with Cathy, civil libertarians should defend his right to do business without harassment or censure from the government for his views. His company is subject to anti-discrimination laws. Those laws protect his employees from “Biblical” harassment.
The gay rights group Equality Illinois is launching a campaign against Chick-Fil-A – petitioning universities and lawmakers to evict the fast food restaurant from their campuses. There is also a plan for a “kiss-in” campaign by gay and lesbian couples outside Chick-Fil-A restaurants. The latter protests are perfectly constitutional. Indeed, Cathy decided to force this issue in his interview and should have expected that his comments would enrage some consumer while delighting others.
It is the plan of Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno (1st) that crosses the line.
I would also oppose as an academic an effort to bar the restaurant at universities. Universities are institutions committed to free speech and free thought. To start to bar groups or businesses on the basis of the religious views of their officers runs against the mission of a university.
Cathy was stating his personal view of gay marriage. He magnified the controversy by extending those views to the company: “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.”
He seemed to double down on those comments despite the controversy and obvious cost of proselytizing to his business: “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.”
Moreno is moving to block permits for a new business in Chicago. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has also vowed to block Chick-Fil-A from entering his city at all.
The suggestion that these cities would block a business because of the content of the religious views of one of its officers offends the principles of free speech and a host of constitutional protections. To the degree that the company violates discrimination laws, it can be punished and fined. In the meantime, the company is likely to loss millions in sales as well as protests from customers offended by Cathy’s comments. Just as Cathy elected to make his views public, customers have the same right. We can leave the outcome to the marketplace to work out.
Source: CBS
Mike Appleton:
I dont see why not. I guess you are a believer in the “a stiff dick has no conscience” school of sexuality and human behavior?
People make conscious and unconscious choices concerning sex and sexuality all the time.
Thinking sex devoid of thought is rather bizarre to my way of thinking.
does chik-fil-eh close on the sabbath?
Seems ot me that the more people tell you how christian they are the less they live it. Words are easy, behaving as what would Jesus want is a heck of a lot harder.
Blouise,
It is funny how unchristian some Christians can be. I just can’t imagine Jesus not welcoming everyone who believes in him. No matter what sexual orientation they were born with.
OS ((*_*))
leejcaroll,
Your comment reminded me of one of those “driveway moments” I heard on NPR. They were interviewing a professor of theology from a major university in North Carolina. The professor, who is also an ordained minister, had received an invitation from a local church to come and speak at a Sunday evening service. The pastor and church committee emphasized to the professor they believed in the bible, “as it was originally written,” and requested he keep that in mind when he presented his sermon. He was to preach the gospel as it was originally written.
When the good doctor got up and began speaking, the pastor jumped up from his seat behind the pulpit and tugged on the professor’s sleeve. “What are you doing,” he asked.
The professor replied that he was told they wanted the sermon delivered as the bible was originally written, so he was preaching in the Aramaic language.
He was not invited back again.
So Jim, what morning did you awaken and say Hmmmm I think I will be heterosexual?
(interesting biblical verses Jim and explanation so you can easily understand how your reading of the bible leaves a lot to be desired.http://squashed.tumblr.com/post/105428587/homosexuality-and-the-new-testament
And by the way which translation do you rely on> Who knows what the original said, it has been translated, retranslated and translated from the translations so many times only G-d knows what he originally dictated.
For those who think that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice: Why would someone deliberately choose a “lifestyle” that brings out so many hateful bigots? Why would they choose a “lifestyle” that can get them beaten up or killed? Or have trouble getting housing or jobs? We’ve come a long way in recognizing that homosexuals, male and female, have rights, that their homosexuality isn’t a choice, but there is still hated and intolerance as witnessed in Jim’s posts.
OS, my favorite West Wing clip.
The bible is full of contradictions and folks like Jim are able to pick and choose, take out of context, or whatever to make their point. The more I learn of the history of the bible and its many translations by men, the less I’m able to give it much credence. Some history, skewed as all history. Some good ideas on how to treat each other, but even more ideas on how not to treat others.
Mr. Curry’s speaking out had little to do with faith. It was a political statement, perhaps to rile up the extremists and to further divide the country
“This statement not only displays bigotry, it displays the hubris that you speak for God” (Gene)
This reminds of a famous quote from a Texas congressman who was not joking when he said, in rejecting calls for the use of Spanish in local schools, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me.”
Those who understand the underpinnings of Christianity know that the Almighty has his own purposes. Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The Bible is the ongoing saga of man’s struggle to understand God’s ways.
The pompous self-importance of the scribes and Pharisees as presented in the New Testament is constantly reenacted today by folk who in the end are doing nothing more than, as revealed in Jim’s writings above, playing politics and using The Almighty as a veneer for their own bigotry. “Christian values” are apolitical but Christians playing politics are dime a dozen posers.
Bron:
My view is that science will eventually demonstrate that human sexuality is much like human personality: it’s a spectrum. However, I find your suggestion that people “choose” their sexuality a bit bizarre. I believe that people “discover” their sexuality at different stages of their lives based upon their biology and experience. I can choose paint colors for the dining room, but I can’t choose my sexual preferences in that manner.
Mike A.,
You are such a pragmatist and optimist and I dig that about you.
Bron,
“I dont think the science is settled.”
Yeah, Bron. It pretty much is settled. Sexual orientation is rooted in genetics but environment helps shape the way it manifests. Kind of like flour by analogy. Under some conditions it makes a cake, under some conditions it makes glue, but the fundamental causal element is still flour and the formation of gluten.
I’m confident that big city pols are playing to an audience and recognize that they cannot constitutionally prohibit a lawful business from opening an outlet due to the opinions of its owners. But their statements are also politically stupid because they provide more ammunition to those who have complained for years that liberals are engaged in a “war on religion.”
On the plus side, since Chick-Fil-A is predominately based in the southeast, a surge in purchases by fundamentalists to offset the boycott may well increase the incidence of heart disease in the conservative base to demographically offset the impact of voter suppression legislation in the South.
Perhaps we should view this glass as half-full.
Jim,
I don’t blame science for the facts that it uncovers about how the universe operates. Science is a body of knowledge discovered by applying a verifiable/falsifiable testable methodology to reduce error known as the scientific method. It makes statements about the nature of reality based on empirical fact instead of irrational belief.
To blame science for homosexuality is like blaming science for the atomic weight of Boron.
That would be ignorant.
Almost as ignorant as professing to teach love but encouraging discrimination which is a form of oppression and ergo hatred.
But there you have it.
Gene H:
I dont think the science is settled. There are probably people who are gay because of nature but then there are also people who are gay by nurture or by choice.
Jim,
I would have guessed that you would have not stood for the President. But I bet you would stand for a bishop or cardinal who have hidden child molestors from the police.
Jim:
Can you love the sinner and hate the sin?
Gene,
If I told you once, I have told you a thousand times, it is not nice to bring scientific facts into a biblical discussion! 🙂
rafflaw
The clip was humorous but unfortunately not one time did the President use the New Testament. Levitical law applied to the Jews. What is odd, though, is that both Old and New Testament speak against Homosexuality. By the way, I would have stayed seated.