More Coverage of Chick-fil-A's Christianist Extremist Mind Set

UPDATED: Chick-fil-A is apparently feeling the heat from recent coverage of its Christianist values and it has issued a new disingenuous statement trying to depict itself as friendly and loving to all. Of course, it's not, and gays are treated as lepers except for when it comes to taking our money. Jeremy Hooper has a good take down of this latest ploy at Good As You.
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I have written before about Chick-fil-A and why I stopped patronizing the company's restaurants once I learned that the company's founder is an Uber-Christian and extremely anti-gay, providing support to many organizations that have near hate group status. Much of the coverage of Chick-filA's policies has been limited to the LGBT media. Now, the New York Times has a story on the privately held company which is continuing the far right founder's policies under the rein of his two sons. With many choices to pick from in the fast food realm, I would encourage readers (who need to in turn encourage their friends and family members) to boycott Chick-fil-A. I see no reason to basically fund those who would keep us second or third class citizens. While the principals of Chick-fil-A have the right to their religious views, one can nonetheless hope that with coverage such as in the Times story, more people will avoid Chick-fil-A and opt for restaurants not controlled by far right theocrats. Here are story highlights:
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Nicknamed “Jesus chicken” by jaded secular fans and embraced by Evangelical Christians, Chick-fil-A is among only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos. But recently its ethos has run smack into the gay rights movement. A Pennsylvania outlet’s sponsorship of a February marriage seminar by one of that state’s most outspoken groups against homosexuality lit up gay blogs around the country. Students at some universities have also begun trying to get the chain removed from campuses.
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“If you’re eating Chick-fil-A, you’re eating anti-gay,” one headline read. The issue spread into Christian media circles, too
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Because the company remains privately held — his two sons run it — it can easily keep its faith-based principles intact. The company’s corporate purpose is, in part, “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.”
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Chick-fil-A is a trailblazer of sorts, said Lake Lambert, the author of “Spirituality, Inc.” and dean of the college of liberal arts at Mercer University, where he teaches Christianity. “They’re going in a direction we haven’t seen in faith-based businesses before, and that is to a much broader marketing of themselves and their products,” he said. “This is possibly the next phase of evangelical Christianity’s muscle flexing.”
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The company’s Christian culture and its strict hiring practices, which require potential operators to discuss their marital status and civic and church involvement, have attracted controversy before, including a 2002 lawsuit brought by a Muslim restaurant owner in Houston who said he was fired because he did not pray to Jesus with other employees at a training session. The suit was settled.
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Douglas Quint, a concert bassoonist who operates The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in New York during the summer, said he believed that people should make informed decisions about their food. “It literally leaves a bad taste because I know the people who are putting this food in my mouth actively loathe me,” he said. “I’m all for freedom of religion, it’s just that I know where I want my money to go and I don’t want my money to go.”
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I agree with Mr. Quint and one will not be seeing me patronize this bigoted company's outlets.