Chick-Fil-A’s gay marriage stance was briefly at the fore again this week when founder Dan Cathy tweeted a message of disdain following the Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA, the Defense Of Marriage Act.
Last summer, Chick-Fil-A became an unlikely flashpoint in the gay marriage debate when Cathy extolled “the biblical definition of a marriage” in a magazine interview (though it wasn’t clear whether he believed the bits about multiple wives and mandatory marriage after rape.)
Cathy and Chick-Fil-A became surrogates for the gay marriage debate then raging when he doubled down on the controversy, following up by saying:
“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’ ”
Attempts to balance the Chick-Fil-A gay marriage controversy were made, and some LGBT advocates stuck up for Cathy in the aftermath — but it appears that regardless of the strife, Cathy is sticking to his anti-marriage equality view.
Before deleting the gay marriage tweet, Chick-Fil-A’s Dan Cathy had said:
Sad day for our nation; founding fathers would be ashamed of our gen. to abandon wisdom of the ages re: cornerstone of strong societies.
As the tweet was reported even after deletion, Chick-Fil-A was forced to issue a statement clarifying that the controversial opinion in the wake of DOMA’s Supreme Court ruling was that of Dan Cathy himself and not the chain as a whole :
“Dan recognizes his views do not necessarily represent the views of all Chick-fil-A customers, restaurant owners and employees, so he removed the tweet to eliminate any confusion.”
The chain also hinted at the issue of gay and lesbian customers feeling welcome at Chick-Fil-A, saying:
“We believe in providing great-tasting food and genuine hospitality to everyone — so our focus is on running an exceptional restaurant company. Therefore, we are leaving political decisions and discussions to others and focusing only on what we do best.”
Does Chick-Fil-A founder Dan Cathy’s gay marriage views influence your decision on whether to patronize the chain?
