I want to give credit to Dr. James White, pastor of
Mecklenburg Community Church, for his insight on the recent news about
Chick-fil-A.
Dan Cathy, president and chief operating officer of
Chick-fil-A, gave an interview to Baptist Press. Correctly saying that there is no such thing as
a “Christian business,” he did offer that organizations such as his can operate
on biblical principles “asking God and pleading with God to give us wisdom on
decisions we make about people and the programs and partnerships we have.”
Then came the match that lit the fire. When asked about the company’s support of the
traditional family, Cathy simply said, “Well, guilty as charged.” He then went on to say, “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…our restaurants are typically led by families…We want to do anything
we possibly can to strengthen families.”
Gasp! How dare he
say that when it comes to families, his support goes with the historic,
traditional understanding of millennia that reflects his Judeo-Christian
values. At least that seemed to be the
response from much of the media.
The Baptist Press interview was picked up by the Huffington
Post, Associated Press, USAToday, Los
Angeles Times and more – most with the phrase “anti-gay” in the headline –
fueled by the “revelation” that the privately-owned business donated to
Christian groups that opposed homosexuality.
Of course, overlooked
were the millions of dollars Chick-fil-A gives each year to other charitable
causes. For example, they fund foster
care programs, schools of higher learning, and children’s camps. They provide scholarships for the employees
to attend college, and this past Friday, they provided free meals for the police
force in Aurora, Colorado.
Many on twitter and in the blogosphere immediately labeled
them a hate group. Yes, a hate group. Then
the mayor of Boston vowed to block Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in the
city because it is a business “that discriminates against a population.”
The Jim Henson Company of Kermit and Miss Piggy fame said
they will stop providing toys for the fast food chain’s kids’ meals because the
company won’t endorse same-sex marriage.
They plan on donating money already received from Chick-fil-A to the Gay
& Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Ed Helms, star of the sitcom The Office, publicly promised a personal
boycott.
Okay, let’s put our
big-boy pants on for a minute.
Cathy never uttered the words “anti-gay” in the
interview. All he did was state, when
pointedly asked, his support for the traditional family as outlined in the
Bible.
Further, the company made it clear following Cathy’s
comments that they had no intention of entering the policy debate over same-sex
marriage, and that 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.”
And indeed, there has never even been a hint of
discrimination in Chick-fil-A’s history.
So Chick-fil-A is not a hate group, does not discriminate,
and is not actively working in the realm of public policy. It just has personal core values.
But what a mirror this has provided, and the reflection is
worth noting.
Fifty years ago, any support of homosexual practice would
have ended your business. Now, the
threat to your business is support of the traditional family.
This is what has taken place in American culture.
First, classical Christian orthodoxy was marginalized.
Second, it became ostracized.
Third, it became demonized.
Fourth, it became penalized.
And now the move would seem to be to have it criminalized.
Defining discrimination as disagreement, and then
disagreement as a hate crime, is one of the more frightening developments of
our time. But developed it has.
As the Baptist Press reporter has since said of the tempest
over Cathy’s remarks, “I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing all of a
sudden. It was not an anti-gay
statement. It was a pro-family statement.”
But that’s the point.
That’s the world in which we now find ourselves.
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