Chick-fil-A responded to me

[UnrepentantLiberal]

I wrote:

Do to your stance on homosexuals I will no longer be eating at your restaurant.

They replied:

Dear (My last name):

The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 Restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.

Chick-fil-A is a family-owned and family-led company serving the communities in which it operates. From the day Truett Cathy started the company, he began applying biblically-based principles to managing his business. For example, we believe that closing on Sundays, operating debt-free and devoting a percentage of our profits back to our communities are what make us a stronger company and Chick-fil-A family.

Our mission is simple: to serve great food, provide genuine hospitality and have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.

Sincerely,

Timothy
Chick-fil-A CARES
Chick-fil-A...We Didn't Invent The Chicken, Just The Chicken Sandwich.

Don't forget to write them: http://www.chick-fil-a.com/Connect/Contact-Us-CARES

[louis-t]

1. Hooray!!1!!1

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Don't you just love it when you get the corporate boilerplate crap?

this type of tripe makes me so angry. Someone at 'corporate' decided on the text, wording it as positively as they can!!! See how many times the words 'family' and 'community' are in there?

Same crap at Cracker Barrel, where they have some such tripe posted as you walk in the door. Really? Your restaurant needs to POST a note at the door that we will respect you, no matter your color or sexual orientation??? Really??

Oh, and never bother to call the Cracker Barrel number posted if you have a complaint. I did, got a recording, left my number and of course, never heard back from them.

[HockeyMom]

3. Non-Christian, and mother of a Lesbian daughter

These TWO issues are very personal to me. Any company that opposes these issues will not get my business.

[el_bryanto]

9. Hmmmmm - opposes Gay Marriage and opposes non Christians?

Do they oppose non-Christians?

[HockeyMom]

13. Closed Sundays

"So our employees can worship and be with their families". All religions, or none, celebrate Sundays as their day of worship? "Biblical" as they said in their letter. Read between the lines of that word.

[el_bryanto]

45. Is there evidence of them discriminating against non-believers or those who worship on other days

of the week? My favorite comic shop is also closed on Sundays, although I don't know if it's because he's following the Bible or not.

Bryant

[UnrepentantLiberal]

49. Yes.

http://m.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=38301

"As it relates to society in general, 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,'" Cathy said on "The Ken Coleman Show." "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is all about."

[el_bryanto]

50. That's evidence that the owner of the company is a bigoted jerk

Not that the company itself discriminates against its customers or employees.

Bryant

[Lifelong Protester]

4. Jeez, I was reading it so fast

I missed the 'biblically' based practices of running the business bit.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

12. Not just faith based but

biblically-based. That's enough right there. "We ain't no Islamics, we ain't no Orientals, and we sure as hell ain't no damn homos."

I Wouldn't set foot in that fast food joint if I was starving to death.

[Lifelong Protester]

16. Me neither!

There are no such franchises anywhere near where I live, but we do travel, and I thank you for the heads up-this place will be avoided.

Did you see the cool FB poster put up by the Muppets? Very cool!

[UnrepentantLiberal]

17. I haven't seen that.

Do you have the link to it?

[Lifelong Protester]

19. Hope this works!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=466037316740585&set=a.115969958413991.17486.114517875225866&type=1&ref=nf

[HarveyDarkey]

20. Better

[UnrepentantLiberal]

24. Got it.

[Lifelong Protester]

47. Love it, don't you?

I do not have the skills to reproduce a photo on DU, so I appreciate those who do. Jon Stewart had this on the Daily Show last night too.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

48. Yeah, it's a great image.

Saw the Daily Show last night. Very good.

It's not hard to post an image here. You just right click on it and save it to your files and then upload it to an image hosting site like Photobucket. You can get excellent advice on how to do that in the Welcome & Help forum.

Edit: To save a Facebook image you have to click on the image which takes you to the Facebook page it was originally posted. Beneath the image you will see "view full image" in grey. Click that and then right click the image and save it to your files.

[Mimosa]

22. Hate to tell you...

But one of my two Muslim doctors runs his practice on his Koran based beliefs.

So, are people not allowed to express their religious opinions any more?

[UnrepentantLiberal]

37. They have a right to their opinion

Last edited Tue Jul 24, 2012, 01:19 PM - Edit history (1)

and I have a right to mine. And I say right wing fundies can go fuck themselves.

[2ndAmForComputers]

38. How the sam hill does one DO that?

[Mimosa]

42. Doesn't use credit in business, staff wear headscarves.....

And of course male doctor is never alone with female patients. There's more. As a patient I have not been inconvenienced. This MD (a really nice guy) tried to proselytise me on Islam. Since I'm not likely to turn Muslim he did get a bit chilly.

He's an excellent doctor but I suspect he sometimes attempts to convert patients. He thought I might be susceptible was because I had been referred by another muslim MD with whom I am friends.

But the specialist turned on my MD friend when I mentioned my friend is Sufi. Apparently that is heresy to some.

[2ndAmForComputers]

43. I'd run away from that MD at precisely the same speed I run from the Xian fundy ones.

You know, exercising my freedom to choose.

[riderinthestorm]

40. Sure they do but then their patrons can boycott, complain and publicize that if they wish

If someone's going to run their biz under a medieval theological umbrella, and be proud of that, I see no reason why there's any qualms about patronizing (or not) that biz, and being public about that position.

[Kalidurga]

5. I thought you said they responded.

That response was about as non-responsive a response as you could get. They didn't even try to address your concern. There wasn't even an attempt at an apology. Nor, do they show where they plan to do better in the future. What a bogus piece of tripe.

[rfranklin]

7. It is a computer bounce back...your message probably wasn't even read...

Just PR boilerplate.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

8. And it was addressed to my last name instead of my first.

You can't get more impersonal than that.

[Mimosa]

21. That's proper form.

If you wrote a letter to a stranger do you address her by her first name? I don't.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

26. Either first or first and last.

But not dear (last name). That's sounds right to you? Do you own a Chick-fil-A?

[Mimosa]

28. LOL!!!!!!!!

I wish.

Proper form in writing letter is (or used to be) 'Dear Ms. Jones:'

or

Dear Dr. Patal:

Bythe way, your first sentence should have read 'Due to' not 'Do to'.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

33. That's not how they addressed me.

Does Dear Jones or Dear Patal work for you?

Thanks for the grammar lesson.

[KharmaTrain]

11. They Did...

...effectively "go screw yourself". Guess they think there's enough homophobes to make a tidy profit. They opened one not far from here in a Chicago suburb...initially people were curious but now the place is just another drive-thru. I knew about their fundie management long ago and haven't nor ever will spend a dime in their den of intolerance.

Browns Chicken tastes better and better...

[slampoet]

6. IT isn't that they oppose gay marriage, it is that they only hire Married people.

[Mimosa]

23. That is NOT TRUE.

Simply not true.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

31. that may win "Ignorant Post of the Day"

for being demonstrably false...

sP

[surrealAmerican]

10. Judging from their response, it appears they didn't read your message ...

... which may be just as well. Those same words could easily have been written by somebody who was upset with them for allowing gay customers in their stores. We know what you meant, but they wouldn't have.

[donco]

14. Yet when i

clicked on this thread...i got a pop-up, touting a free "Chick-fil-A"coupon if i click on said pop-up.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

15. Adblock Plus is your friend.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom

[Mimosa]

18. The facts: Dan Cathy did NOT anything about gay marriage.

Once again, people are being manipulated by bad journalism.

Here is what Cathy said, complete and in context.

http://www.getreligion.org/2012/07/wheres-the-beef-what-the-chick-fil-a-boss-really-said/

Excerpt:

So, did you hear about that wild quote that the president of Chick-fil-A didn’t say the other day?

Here’s a piece of a CNN report that is typical of the mainstream press coverage of this latest cyber-skirmish in America’s battles over homosexuality, commerce and free speech (sort of).

(CNN) — The fact that Chick-fil-A is a company that espouses Christian values is no secret. The fact that its 1,600 fast-food chicken restaurants across the country are closed on Sundays has long been testament to that. But the comments of company President Dan Cathy about gay marriage to Baptist Press on Monday have ignited a social media wildfire.

“Guilty as charged,”, Cathy said when asked about his company’s support of the traditional family unit as opposed to gay marriage.

“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,” Cathy is quoted as saying.

Now, one would assume — after reading a reference to the “comments of company President Dan Cathy about gay marriage” — that this interview from the Biblical Recorder in North Carolina (which was circulated by Baptist Press) actually included direct quotes from Cathy in which he talks about, well, gay marriage.

In this case, one cannot assume that.

While the story contains tons of material defending traditional Christian teachings on sexuality, the controversial entrepreneur never talks about gay rights or gay marriage. Why? Because he wasn’t asked about those issues in the interview.

This raises an interesting journalistic question: Is a defense of one doctrine automatically the same thing as an on-the-record attack on the opposite doctrine? In this case, is it accurate for CNN (and others) to say that Cathy made comments about gay marriage when, in fact, he did not speak words addressing that issue?

But wait, readers might say, everyone KNOWS what he was talking about! And, once his actual comments were quoted, kind of, in the mainstream press, it was then possible to quote many people who offered their angry reactions to his actual words because of their interpretation of them.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

29. Bullshit

http://m.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=38301

"As it relates to society in general, 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,'" Cathy said on "The Ken Coleman Show." "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is all about."

[Mimosa]

30. And he has no right to his personal religious beliefs?

Mainstream Catholics, Muslims, Jews all have a similar view of what constitutes marriage.

Whether or not I disagree I value the Constitutional rights to freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

[Major Nikon]

32. Bigotry under the veil of religious belief is still bigotry

So sure, he has the 'right' to be a bigot. I also have the right to tell him and his restaurant to go fuck themselves.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

34. What Major Nikon said.

[Lex]

35. He can have them all he wants, and I have a right to oppose the bigotry he hides behind

claiming "religious beliefs." In the South in the 1960's Christians used to say segregation was in the Bible, slavery was in the Bible, and it was a part of their religion not to have to recognize civil rights for black people.

[2ndAmForComputers]

39. He has no right to expect non-bigots to keep on giving him their money.

[Luminous Animal]

41. Personally, I give a wide berth to bigots no matter their religious affiliation...

A wonderful thing that I learned from my parents in the 60s. Thanks Rhoda & Tom!

[mmonk]

44. He has the right to his bigotry and his supporting discrimination laws against other Americans

and since he is paying to do harm to others with his money, the victims of discrimination have a right to retaliate and attempt to damage him back.

[Bluenorthwest]

46. Of course he has the right to bigotry, we also have the right to reject such haters for what they

are and for the lies they promote. I'm sure you are able to understand that his 'beliefs' are only known because he promotes them. He is an activist against equal rights and his actions, not his 'beliefs', are the problem. It is possible to run a fast food company without ever mentioning one's 'beliefs' is it not? So he wants to be an activist against good people, he will pay the price for his actions. Do you think I don't have that right? Only the haters have rights?

[w8liftinglady]

25. well,we'll see if the manager in Red Texas replies.

"I am a Christian lgbt mother of three sons,and I will no longer go to your restaurant.How UnChristian of you."

[Skittles]

27. TRANSLATION

WE WILL STAY BIGOTS BUT PLEASE EAT OUR CHICKEN

[Lex]

36. We will smile to your face, but donate thousands to oppose your rights.

Yep.

[cindyperry2010]

51. the one time i ate

there the food was bland and tasteless so no

[William769]

52. So not only are they bigots, they lied to you.

"our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena."

Who would have thought!