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Saturday, May 25, 2013
Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day: Anti-gay marriage eat-in draws Sacramento crowd
by Melissa Corker, published on August 2, 2012 at 8:56 AM
Storyline: Politics
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A line of cars wrapped around the Alta Arden Expressway Chick-fil-A franchise and spilled onto the streets as Sacramento residents joined in “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” and showed their support Wednesday for restaurant chain owner Dan Cathy’s statements opposing gay marriage.
The turnout across the nation pushed the restaurant chain to record sales, according to a Fox News report, but restaurant owner Dan Cathy declined to discuss sales figures from Wednesday’s nationwide eat-in.
At the local Chick-fil-A restaurant, security guards kept the press off the restaurant property, and drive-through customers waited nearly 30 minutes before receiving their food.
Nearby Alta Arden resident Candice Moses said seeing all the cars made her come over to see what all the fuss is about.
“I’m not a fast-food person, but it’s cool to know what’s happening in my own backyard,” Moses said. “It’s cool to see all this support.”
Despite the LGBT community’s disagreement with the Chick-fil-A corporate stance on gay marriage, there weren’t any local protests in the community, because franchise owners of the Sacramento location are members of the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce – a core supporter of the local LGBT community, according to local activist Ken Pierce.
Jessica Morse, of the Sierra College Rainbow Alliance, told KCRA news that anyone who eats at Chick-fil-A is helping to fund anti-gay groups.
"Every time somebody buys from Chick-fil-A, the money goes to anti-gay organizations that also give misinformation out," she said. "I am a Christian and I happen to be part of the LGBT community, and I disagree with Chick-fil-A."
Yesterday’s Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day was a response to a call to action posted on Facebook by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee “to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick Fil-A” on Wednesday. Thousands of people took him up on the invitation either in person at one of the chain’s 1600-plus locations, or by making a statement of support online via Twitter or Facebook.
Cathy told the Los Angeles Times that Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day was not created by the restaurant.
“We appreciate all of our customers and are glad to serve them at any time,” Cathy said in a statement to the Times.
Facebook user Amy Gulick left a comment with a different take on our Facebook page.
"Great, like Americans need another excuse to flock to fast food nastiness," she said.
Sacramento Press editorial intern Ebony Jeffries contributed to this story.
Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @MelissaCorker.
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Many seemed to think it was a free speech rally, which was clearly not the case given the organizer's (Mike Huckabee) statement regarding what it was all about.
I will freely admit that I don't agree with the mayors and others who said that they would seek to block Chick-fil-A from their neighborhoods. If they had legitimate issues with how they would fit in with the neighborhood, or Chick-fil-A didn't do everything that was necessary to start a business there, then I could see it as legitimate. But otherwise, they're free to locate where they follow the legal procedure to locate. And we and the neighborhoods they're located in, are free to boycott them.
I'm not sure how to feel that they are part of the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce. It feels heavily conflicted that a franchisee that supports gay rights would send money back to a head office that would then spend that money against gay rights.
As for "changing" gays, I know all too many who seem to have changed in their own right, and I leave it up to them (shrug).
As for the claim that Chick-Fil-A is "giving money to stop congress from condemning the bills put forth in other countries that would seek to make it illegal to kill us", what nonsense. Short of lobbying for military invasion and colonial occupation, what can Chick-Fil-A, or anyone of us, do about Uganda?
Oh and most gays who "change", change back, become depressed and/or suicidal...but I guess that's all good.
As for the happiness of those who change, I hardly see any happiness from the "gay" people. In fact, they seem downright miserable about just about everything.
The issue at hand is whether or not gays should be allowed to legally marry. Some people are opposed, others are against, and we need to cover both sides, but part of our responsibility as journalists is to describe the debate as accurately as we can, hence the description of this event as an "anti-gay marriage eat in."
These kind of issues often come up while writing about divisive topics in which one side or the other tries to shift the language of the debate. Another example that comes up frequently in Sacramento is "pension reform," a phrase that typically refers to cutting or reducing the pensions of state workers. We try to "call a spade a spade" and not reuse language that can confuse the issue.
This whole issue has backfired; the world does not revolve around anything and everything GAY! Muslims would have you stoned for even thinking that way.
Chick-fil-A's strong stand on Christian and family values has not hurt its business. It recently was named the No. 10 fastest growing American retailer with sales at its 1,615 stores having jumped 13.1 percent to $4 billion in 2011.
When put to a public vote in 33 states, voters in 33 states have said No to gay marriage, including California. With such a crappy track record, one would think gay marriage proponents would smarten up and find a more cost effective way of achieving their goal.
the Gay vs. Christian argument is a dead-end argument that goes nowhere. I think the gay community would be much better served by advocating the libertarian position that marriage of any kind is a private, personal liberty and should not be subject to government involvement, review, approval or notification.
Take marriage out of the tax code and everywhere else that it pops up in our interaction with the government, and leave people to make whatever social arrangements they wish. This would make gay marriage immune to public referendums and legislation, and at the same time end discrimanatory policy of punishing married couples with higher taxes.
So who is on board?
*Sigh* Some people need to believe other people are morally inferior to them so they can feel morally superior. What good is there in being a saint if there are no sinners? But I wonder if the Jesus that these people purport to love and want to emulate would have stood in line at a crappy fast food joint yesterday? Something tells me he would not.
This entire argument is about whether governments recognize gay marriage as "valid" or not, and in that sense is a contrived argument. The obvious solution is to stop asking for government validation. Free association is a fundamental civil liberty, so let's all agree that it is none of the government business how and who we decide to live with.
We gave up these fundamental liberties when we allowed the government into our personal affairs (courthouse weddings, IRS & state tax codes etc). Now it should be clear that we need to take these rights back from the government.
Or the gay community can keep railing against "those nasty Christians" and continue going nowhere towards their objective.
I'd be all for a strictly personal wedding. I'd love for you to try and suggest to the millions of married Americans that they should just give up all the rights and special preferences they receive. Especially the tax incentives...that'd be amusing.
And progress is being made. It's not a nowhere objective. Mutiple unbiased polls have shown that views are shifting, and that it tends to be among the younger voters. Thus, the tide will shift, it's just a matter of time.
Being married costs my wife and I around $5000 a year. That's a lot of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches!
Which makes one wonder why the generally high income and and well educated gay community would be so eager for government validation of their personal life. This is an area where tea party small government types (economic liberals) and gay (social libertarians) have common ground and could have a real impact on state and local politics.
Wikipedia has some calculations of the marriage penalty for reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty
Here are the IRS tax tables, run the numbers for yourself!
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf