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
Darren Smith
1, July 27, 2012 at 10:16 pm
Ding!
What ! no cute girl in the arena between rounds?
———————————————————————–
Hey! I’m cute and Gene is downright adorable!
Hey y’all, don’t say that the Bible did not anticipate modern times! That’s not fair. I mean, right in the story of Sodom and Gomorroah you have a Biblical law against rubber-necking. Remember? Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of SALT! If you’re on your way somewhere, and something happens that isn’t your business, do NOT stop and gawk at it, keep moving, or you’ll be SORRY!
Without beltways and traffic jams, how did the Bible know to prohibit rubber-necking, huh? HUH? See!
Everything is in that book, everything! You just have to know how to find it.
Jim:
“Who is judging?”
********************************
That would be you. The Bible holds no more validity than any other ancient text. You just like it better. Like Jefferson, I’m not into all that blood, gore, and slavery talk.
If you want some Biblical predictions gone awry here’s my list:
From the “rumors of my demise are premature” file:
Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
Isaiah 19:4-5 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts. And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river [Nile] shall be wasted and dried up.
From the “never happened” file:
Ezekiel 29:10-11 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.
Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.
Matthew 1:22-23 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Jim,
Last time I looked, the Constitution does not mention the bible anywhere. In fact, the closest it comes is the part where a test of faith cannot be used as a disqualification for elective office.
What I find funny (in the sick sense, not the humorous one) is how some use the bible as a weapon, but decry the possibility that Islamic Sharia law might find its way into our system. Hypocrisy does not seem to bother some folks.
“The problem Gays and Social Liberals have is not with people like me but rather the Bible.”
No, Jim. The problem “Gays and Social Liberals” (you do realize Jesus was a social liberal, don’t you – but I digress) have is precisely with people like you who misuse a book of parables to rationalize hatred and bigotry while professing to be all about Christ who was about love and acceptance, not bigotry. The problem isn’t the Bible, Jim. The problem is the hatred in your heart you wish to excuse by using “the word of God” as your rationale when the Bible is not now nor has it ever been literally with word of God . . . unless you’re a crazy person, Jim. That Fundamentalist literal interpretation of the Bible is a 20th Century construct created by men to control other men. For the bulk of the history of the Bible, it was taught and understood, correctly so I might add, as a book of parables. If you don’t know what a parable is, let me help you with that. Webster’s defines “parable” as a noun meaning “a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle”. Like Aesop’s Fables. Like Torah. Like the New Testament. Like the Quaran. Trouble only comes about when the imbalanced cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy such as when people take parables to be literal truths or the literal words of a divine being. This is a hazard of not understanding what you read within the proper philosophical and historical context.
The bible is but one of many religious books. Which one is the Truth? Only those who do not pretend to judge or oppress any person or group of persons. That narrows it down a LOT.
Those who use the bible or any other book of faith as an excuse to oppress another are no better than than moral cretins.
Ding!
What ! no cute girl in the arena between rounds? I would have expected such in this contention. Keep up the debate all 🙂
mespo727272
Who is judging? This conversation is about stating what the Bible says on marriage. That is all! The problem Gays and Social Liberals have is not with people like me but rather the Bible. They can’t change it.
MESPO
Jeremiah predicted that despite its fertility and despite the accessibility of its water supply, the land of Edom (today a part of Jordan) would become a barren, uninhabited wasteland (Jeremiah 49:15-20; Ezekiel 25:12-14). His description accurately tells the history of that now bleak region.
The day of Elijah’s supernatural departure from Earth was predicted unanimously—and accurately, according to the eye-witness account—by a group of fifty prophets (2 Kings 2:3-11).
Science has proven the earth was once covered by water.
We have the Dead Sea scrolls.
The translation of Revelation 6:8 in the King
James Version reads: “And I looked, and
behold a pale horse.” The Greek word that
was translated ‘pale’ is chloros. Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance gives the definition of
chloros as “green or pale.” The word chloros
is the root word for chlorophyll, the pigment
in plants that make them green. Knowing
this, we have to ask if the passage shouldn’t
really have been translated “Behold a green
horse.” The New Revised Standard Version
of the Bible actually renders the passage: “I
looked and there was a pale green horse.” ISLAM
Red Horse Communism
Jim:
“Gays were in the closet remember. This is why they were not beaten up. Most of that started when they wanted to come out of the closet.”
*********************
You need a history book or maybe some life experience or maybe just to get out more. “Rolling queers” was sport for the Neanderthal crowd when I was in grade school in the 60s — well before the Gay Rights movement was popular.
Jim:
Actually, I like California better to all that “Carolina in the Pines” business!!!
Blouise:
I like to quote this passage to our sanctimonious friends. Call me an imp:
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
Matt. 7 (KJV)
bettykath
Gays were in the closet remember. This is why they were not beaten up. Most of that started when they wanted to come out of the closet. They want us to be tolerant of them but they are not tolerant of our views if they do not align with theirs. Like you for example, You don’t want me having my opinion if it is not yours. Your Problem is that the majority of Americans profess to be Christian and do not want Gay marriage. North Carolina !!!!!
Gene/ Jim:
Either you accept a endlessly re-written, politicized, contradictory, cherry-picked first century manuscript detailing how the universe works or you don’t. Personally, I believe you are as silly to think this book maps onto reality as you would thinking the same of the Rigveda of Hinduism or the Grecian Aeneid. These were primitive people trying to make sense of a world they could not hope to master or even understand. Thus any attempt to find any prescriptive value in such a work must necessarily involve its philosophical as opposed to its literal value.
Fundies like Jim want the world laid before them with an owner’s manual. Sorry but whichever deity ruled the roost, didn’t provide one. And there is nothing in any of the texts to show even one scintilla of awareness of the future. Sure the modestly named John the Divine, in the Bible’s faintly psychedelic book, Revelations, could predict that:
7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.
8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.
9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
10 They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
But it would take a fine imagination to conclude he was referring to modern attack helicopters as some do today. I’m not aware of any 5-month delayed detonating Hellfire missiles.
Bottom line is that if you want to convince anyone about the perils of homosexual lovemaking you’d be wise to base your argument in science and logic rather than the quaint but childish, “because the Bible tells me so.”
If we are going to live by some ancient text which will it be since both the Rigveda and the Aeneid regard homosexuality as valid expressions of human love?
raf,
Christian values are quite simple and can be found in Mathew 25:35-36 : feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, clothe the naked, and forgiveness of enemies and all others.
These posers need to stop thumping and open the book to the chilling words in 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.” (I know I’m repeating but those are chilling words indeed for a guy like Cathy who has spent his entire adult business life using the Almighty as a mere veneer to cover his own bigotry.)
There are so many contradictions in the Bible because it is a collection of stories regarding man’s attempts to understand the ways of God … and constantly failing. From Adam and Eve to Abraham to Job to the prophets to Paul … one goof-up after the other …
leejcarol
thanks, i wasn’t sure. i haven’t been to one since the 80’s. lotta money, little sandwich.
Bron,
I presented evidence in favor of what I say and nothing about what I said was simplistic about it other than perhaps your understanding of it. If you have evidence that sexual orientation is not rooted in genetics and shaped in manifestation by environment, present it. Otherwise, what you have is your opinion, ill-informed or otherwise. Just saying “the science isn’t settled” without proof never worked for you on climate change and it’s not going to work for you on sexual orientation either.
Everyone knows that it is a sin to cook chicken in Crisco and not in Lard, even on the Sabbath. To invoke the Lards name against gays is quite insane. Mary was a virgin because Joseph was gay. So of course Jesus is the son of God. Not Joseph and there is the issue of artificial insemination. The chain is closed on Sunday because it is the day that sinners worship the sun. It is all very complicated. But I think I explained it all for the folks like the Chic Filet owners who went in dumb, come out dumb too, and have gay kids.
Pete, yes. they are closed on Sunday
No, Gene it isnt pretty much settled. There are many parts to human sexuality, to say that it is all traceable to a gene or genes is rather simplistic.