From there, it blossomed into a fast-food chain that today employs some 50,000 workers in over 1,600 restaurants in 39 states and the District of Columbia.
Chick-fil-A remains family operated and, with 2011 sales exceeding $4.1 billion, is a classic example of what entrepreneurial skills and hard work can accomplish in the American marketplace.
Unabashedly Christian, the company?s long-standing dedication to traditional family values is a matter of record.
According to its Corporate Purpose Statement, the company seeks ?to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.?
Consistent with that principle, the company is closed on Sundays, a policy which Cathy says was enacted as ?our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.?
Today, unfortunately, the company and its president, Dan T. Cathy, are embroiled in a baseless controversy contrived to advance same-sex marriage.
On July 16, the Baptist Press posted wide-ranging comments from Cathy about the company?s Christian underpinnings and their practical application to its manner of conducting business.
Near the end of the interview, after acknowledging that some oppose Chick-fil-A?s support of the traditional family, Cathy said: ?Well, guilty as charged. 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.?
Three days later, CNN not only extracted Cathy?s remarks from their overall context but inserted them in a context of its own creation.
Here?s how CNN reported Cathy?s remarks, with the network?s pivotal distortion italicized: ? ?Guilty as charged,? Cathy said when asked about his company?s support of the traditional family unit as opposed to gay marriage.?
In fact, Cathy was never specifically asked about gay marriage nor did he ever specifically condemn it. And that becomes important because his words, as gratuitously embellished by CNN, have become the predicate for a vile, vicious attack against him and his company by gay-rights groups and some very ignorant politicians.
In Chicago, for instance, Alderman Proco ?Joe? Moreno, vowed not to allow Chic-fil-A to open a restaurant in his district because of ?the bigoted, homophobic comments by Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, who recently came out against same-sex marriage.?
That punishment, he explained, would show the ?ignorant? Cathy that ?there are consequences for one?s actions, statements and beliefs.?
Meanwhile, Philadelphia City Councilman Jim Kenney, branding Cathy as ?rabidly homophobic?, has introduced a resolution condemning Chick-fil-A?s ?anti-American attitude of trying to deny civil liberties that every American enjoys.?
San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee and Boston?s Mayor Thomas Menino have also advised Chick-fil-A not to try to do business in their cities.
?There?s no place for discrimination on Boston?s Freedom Trail,? Menino told Chick-fil-A, ?and no place for your company alongside it.?
Naturally, gay-rights activists are in the forefront of the bogus controversy. In addition to widespread protests, they?ve created a Facebook page to promote ?National Same-Sex Kiss Day at Chick fil-A.?
It includes a drawing of a chicken on a crucifix with the title, ?He died for your hate,? and calls upon gay people to descend on the company?s restaurants across the country this Friday and kiss each other.
In truth, nothing Dan Cathy said was anywhere close to hateful. Even when considered in the CNN-devised context, his words were nothing more than an affirmation of his belief in the biblical definition of the family unit.
That hardly compels the conclusion that he ?hates? those with a contrary point of view. Nor has there been any allegation that the company discriminates against gay people in any aspect of its business operation.
As for the ranting of those sycophantic politicians, governmental discrimination against Chick-fil-A because of the personal beliefs of its president - viewpoint discrimination - would unquestionably be illegal. So, are these politicians and gay-rights activists crazy? Hardly. They know exactly what they?re doing, precisely because they?ve been doing it all along to anybody and everybody who dares speak out against their efforts to radically redefine marriage to include same-sex couples.
With reckless abandon, they cast opponents as hateful, or homophobic, or religious fanatics, or right-wing crazies, or some other creation of their own biases.
And this Friday, they?ll invade Chick-fil-A restaurants around the nation, not to purchase a meal, but to make spectacles of themselves. They?ll callously interfere with other diners? reasonable expectation of enjoyment, and then watch every television network not named Fox News approvingly tell the world how they really socked it to the evil Dan Cathy and his fellow hate-mongers.
In other words, it is they who have neither respect for nor tolerance of the sincerely-held beliefs of others; they who indiscriminately smear with broad brushes; they who, when all is said and done, hate most of all.
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[Daniel Leddy?s column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.]
Source: http://www.silive.com/opinion/danielleddy/index.ssf/2012/07/the_hateful_vendetta_against_c.html
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