After DOMA falls another anti-gay gaffe from Chick-Fil-A's Dan Cathy
by VERSHA SHARMA | Vocativ.com | 28th June 2013
June 2012: Dan Cathy, President of the delicious and controversial fast food chain Chick-Fil-A, ignited a media firestorm by saying America is “inviting God’s judgment” by trying to legalize same-sex marriage.
June 2013: Dan Cathy tweeted that the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act is a “sad day for our nation,” then promptly deleted it.
I guess some people never learn.
The brouhaha over Cathy’s comments last year shone a spotlight on the company’s financial contributions: Chick-Fil-A gave millions of dollars to organizations fighting gay marriage nationwide. The mayors of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco denounced the fried chicken joint, which prompted anti-gay marriage advocates to buy waffle fries en masse to support of Cathy’s right to freedom of speech. Meanwhile, as a form of protest, students at Northeastern University and Davidson College successfully petitioned their schools to stop serving Chick-Fil-A.
The negative attention from last year wasn’t enough to deter Cathy from venting his feelings on Twitter this week after the Court’s landmark ruling — though they may have been enough to make him think twice, or have the company PR department ask him to remove the tweet (it’s unclear who deleted the tweet, which was archived on Topsy).
Critics said the deleted tweet was clearly a sign of yet another major oops by the company, which is based in suburban Atlanta. “Discrimination is bad for business and even Chick-Fil-A has figured that out,” said Joe Mirabella, the director of communications for All Out, a New York-based gay rights organization. “You can’t just scrub a negative reputation from your customers memories the same way you can delete a tweet. Businesses should always treat their employees and customers with dignity and respect no matter who they are or who they love.”
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the fast food fight last year was how many people came out in support of Cathy’s contentious comments. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee organized Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day after the summer’s worth of backlash, and on August 1, the company reported record-breaking sales with lines out the door, wrapping around the block in multiple cities. (Same-sex marriage supporters responded with a “kiss-in” in front of restaurants nationwide days later.)
Yet judging from a sample of 200 tweets taken on Thursday, the deleted post didn’t garner much sympathy for Chick-Fil-A. Many users expressed disbelief at Cathy’s foray back into the controversial waters, and only two of the 200 voiced support for him. Some gay marriage supporters adopted a Nancy Pelosi-like attitude, noting that despite whatever Cathy thinks, the Supreme Court ruling was a victory, so “who cares?”
This post from Wednesday attracted 1,494 retweets:
According to his own Twitter feed, @dancathy was in New York on Tuesday scouting out potential locations for a new Chick-Fil-A in the city (the only one in town is on the New York University campus). I wonder if the historic Stonewall Inn, the site of jubilant celebrations on Wednesday night, was on his watch list. After all, as current mayoral candidate Christine Quinn shouted during one celebration rally: “It’s two New York lesbians who brought DOMA down!”
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