You would think that after all the brouhaha last year over the company’s antigay stance, Chick-Fil-A President Dan Cathy would have learned to keep his mouth shut. But no. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA, Cathy took to Twitter, the graveyard of common sense, to express his disapproval.
“Sad day for our nation; founding fathers would be ashamed of our gen. to abandon wisdom of the ages re: cornerstone of strong society,” Cathy wrote.
Apparently realizing what a colossal PR blunder he had made, Cathy deleted the tweet, but it had already been captured and sent to a Wall Street Journal reporter.
A company spokesperson told the Huffington Post that Cathy “realized his views didn’t necessarily represent the views of all customers, restaurant owners and employees and didn’t want to distract them from providing a great restaurant experience.” Apparently, some people learn nothing from a crisis except how to repeat it.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Taurox
Didn’t the sales go up after his last remark? I am thinking he knew exactly what he was doing.
Dakotahgeo
Even burn victims learn their lesson after the experience. Apparently CEOs/Owners/Etc., have to learn the hard way. Smart or stupid, this second faux pas cannot be a good omen for Cathy… he deleted too late. Had he thought FIRST,….
queerduck
he’s at home right now riding his suction cupped dildo screaming, “i love you
chic-fil-a”.
Cam
@Taurox:
No, they had a few days of higher sales, then sales dropped, and they have had to close a few locations including one at Emory Univ. in Ga. where students petitioned to get them booted.
yaoming
Too bad… I thought it said “fired” (like the Men’s Wearhouse guy).
hyhybt
So he expressed his personal opinion. Big deal.
1EqualityUSA
His personal opinions turn out to fund hate.
Eiswirth
He has a right to his opinion, and I have a right not to eat at his shitty restaurants.
kejune81
@queerduck:
A lot of people are riding the Devil’s including the Homosexual who fired him.
kejune81
@Eiswirth:
But you will the Devil’s filth?
No wonder God said Satan is the God of this world.
1EqualityUSA
The Christian religious leaders have so little faith in their own Father’s Word, that back room deals and political pandering have replaced talented teachers with foul fellows who turn many off to Christ. Looking at the results of these worldly, unpleasant, politically entwined church leaders, I’d say that they have done more to harm the harvest than those who merely ask to be treated equally under the law.
MK Ultra
The thing is, when someone accuses you of being bigoted or hateful towards a certain demographic and you respond in a cheerful, jovial manner, “guilty as charged”…
well, I think Maya Angelou said (and later quoted by Oprah) something along the lines of, “When people show you who they are, believe them”.
Well, Cathy has shown who he is. Will the thinking public finally believe him?
stanhope
He’s a dick…alas they have great food. My question is not what this dumb ass believes [who cares] but how do they treat their gay employees. From what I have read, that seems to be a real source of concern. Is there a corporate statement on equality? That is the only thing relevant to me. I could give a —- what his personal views are since I won’t be joining him in hell.
gaym50ish
The gay boycott led to a massive counter-protest in which thousands of Americans stood in line for hours to support Chick-fil-A. That seemed to buoy the homophobes into thinking they had won this one, but Chick-fil-A’s BrandIndex rating of consumer perception plummeted.
Cam
@hyhybt:
His restaurants profits directly went to fund the bill in Uganda that would make it legal to kill gays.
Or was your point to try to minimize and hide the actual facts about this guy?
Milk
If there’s no financial consequences why would he shut up about it?
2eo
@Cam: I hope you’re not accusing Hyt of selective bias?
Because that is pretty much all he does.
hyhybt
@Cam: Now that’s a claim I’ve never heard. Got any specifics? Donations *specifically to that cause,* since that’s the claim you’re making?
I’m not saying they didn’t; it’s just that I’ve read the list that was going around last year and the closest thing I can remember to that was a very small, relatively speaking, donation to, I think, FRC. Which is bad enough, but if you then put in what portion of their funding has been claimed to be used to support that law, if that’s what you’re referring to then Chick-fil-A’s contribution to that would be both tiny and almost certainly unintentional. So if that’s what you mean, I suppose it could be considered technically true, but would still be substantially false, or at least misleading to put it as you did. But maybe you had something else in mind.
@2eo: So I don’t buy into demonizing people, making them out to be completely evil because they have flaws, nor grabbing onto a negative characteristic a subset of a group has and deliberately working to treat those who don’t as if they were all the same, nor your bizarre conspiracy theories about this site’s ties to the Mormons. (If that wasn’t you, I apologize.)
hyhybt
Oh, pardon. That’s still not quite right. If that *is* the connection, then while a very small portion of what was already a small donation might eventually have wound up supporting that law, “direct” would be simply and entirely false.
But, again, that might not be what you meant, in which case the thing to do would be to be specific enough that I can tell what you mean and check its veracity.
Cam
@hyhybt: said….
“@Cam: Now that’s a claim I’ve never heard. Got any specifics? Donations *specifically to that cause,* since that’s the claim you’re making?”
_________________
Ahhh, see, right there you give your bias away. Funny how you just HAPPEN to not know anything about the central fact of why the Chick Fil Et Boycott took off. So you seem to want to be able to defend the guy, and yet pretend to know nothing of the facts surrounding the case.
Chick Fil Ets charity arm, which shares an office building with the corporate headquarters gave millions to anti-gay groups such as Family Research Council, Exodus and many others that funded and supported anti-gay bills in this country as well as offering support to the Kill the Gays bill in Uganda.
http://equalitymatters.org/factcheck/201207020001
Again, funny how you seem to have missed that when nobody else did. Even conservative sites like Breitbart wrote it.
hyhybt
@Cam: You lie. You know very well I didn’t miss that; I very plainly referred directly to it. The ONLY thing I said I don’t remember is any reference to their sending money “directly went to fund the bill in Uganda that would make it legal to kill gays.” And, as I remembered, that page says no such thing.
Cam
@hyhybt:
LOL!! You said I am lying because you didn’t miss it? Your very first words in the post were “Now that’s a claim I’ve never heard.”
You LITERALLY contradicted yourself from one post to the next.
And no completely try to avoid the fact that I gave you a list of millions of dollars and multiple anti-gay groups and activities that their money funded.
Why is there a desperation from you to defend the anti-gay activities of this guy and his money. What is your agenda?
hyhybt
@Cam: “LOL!! You said I am lying because you didn’t miss it? Your very first words in the post were “Now that’s a claim I’ve never heard.”
Well, let’s see. First, your initial claim was NOT merely that there was a list of anti-gay groups they’d donated to. Your claim was specifically that they had directly donated to passing the “kill the gays” bill in Uganda. THAT was very plainly, too obviously for you not to know better, the claim I said I hadn’t heard before. NOT the list, which I alluded to before you even mentioned it.
Second: nothing on that list says anything about Uganda, so even putting your claim in the best light, “directly” is false.
Third: while I’m well aware that those groups listed do not support gay marriage, so far as I know (and you certainly haven’t bothered to show otherwise) most of them, and all of the ones receiving the larger amounts, do not actively work against us on that issue, certainly not as anything more than an occasional sideline. If I’m wrong about that, the sooner proof is offered to the contrary, the better; I would much rather be corrected (legitimately, meaning more than just your say-so) than continue operating on false information. The exception, of course, would be FRC, and I went into that in my earlier post.
Fourth: I am not defending anything he has done. But what he is known to have done is bad enough, and what you accused him of is something else going far beyond that. I don’t go for painting people to be worse than they are. It’s dishonest and unfair when the other side does it, and it’s the same when this side does it.
As for my agenda… I can see why you would see it that way. Confirmation bias is an easy thing. You almost certainly only see what I post on Queerty, and only notice my name when what I say contradicts your own thoughts. The thing is, I often don’t *need* to post here when what I would say has been said by someone else already. In case you’re interested in getting a fairer picture, Google my username; I use it pretty much everywhere. To make it simpler, just try Disqus; it can show you my comments from a variety of articles on various sites all at once. Or just start here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/6/flour-power-isnt-sweet-on-gay-marriage