Truett Cathy steps down as CEO of Chick-fil-A (Newnan: felony, to buy)

[WmMeeker]

My feeling is that they make a very good product, their stores are always clean and kept up and the help is always good. As long as that is the case, I will eat there. But I also agree that religion is religion and should be kept at home and in your church. It has no place in business or in the public square. That does not mean your moral principals should not guide you while at work or at school but you should respect the Gods of other people as well. As for them being closed on Sunday, I think it is fine if that is what they want because it is their business but I also think it is rather foolish to have a blanket policy like that. For example, the malls are filled with shoppers on Sunday. It is one of their busiest days. Perhaps Monday would be a better day for the mall locations to close. Sunday is not really the Sabbath anyway. It is Saturday. God didn't change the day, man did.

[Saintmarks]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

Personally, I don't see the point in alienating customers based on one's own religious views. If I'm an evangelical Christian and I own a business, what sense would it make for me to broadcast my beliefs about, say, atheists and adherents of other religions and their eternal damnation?

No one's saying that a Christian (or Jew or Muslim or whoever) can't have convictions and run a successful business, but that doesn't mean that your business constitutes the appropriate (or smartest) context in which to make all of your religious convictions known. Of course he has a right to do that, but I disagree with the type of connection you're making here.

The only thing that the customer will notice being overtly religious regarding the restaurant itself is their being closed on Sunday if you can make that stretch. A privately owned business can close down any day of the week if they want.

Dan Cathy never "broadcast" his opinions. He spoke to a denominational group about his personal beliefs on a political issue. That was then broadcast by those wishing to smear him. Winshape, their charitable foundation (begun by the Cathy's, not Chick-Fil-A) has given to conservative Christian groups, not the business. If the Cathy's have beliefs you don't like, it is not broadcast through the business, but through their personal endeavors. If that makes you not want to buy one of their awesome Chicken sandwiches, that is up to you, but you are misconstruing quite a lot here.

[atler8]

If you more carefully examine some of the "conservative Christian groups" that received their charitable contributions, & more specifically understand the purpose, mission statements, public statements in the media as well as the policies of some of those groups or institutions, you might understand why many people such as myself no longer darken the doorways of the Chick-Fil-A chain. There is no misconstruing the purpose & message of groups such as The American Family Association or the Family Research Council.
My main beef against those particular organizations are the hurtful & untruthful statements their spokespeople make on controversial social issues, some of which directly impact me personally.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

Dan Cathy never "broadcast" his opinions. He spoke to a denominational group about his personal beliefs on a political issue. That was then broadcast by those wishing to smear him. Winshape, their charitable foundation (begun by the Cathy's, not Chick-Fil-A) has given to conservative Christian groups, not the business. If the Cathy's have beliefs you don't like, it is not broadcast through the business, but through their personal endeavors. If that makes you not want to buy one of their awesome Chicken sandwiches, that is up to you, but you are misconstruing quite a lot here.

So which is it? Does Cathy's business and faith/spiritual convictions go hand in hand, or has he made a separation of the two? You were seemingly arguing the former previously.

[Saintmarks]

Originally Posted by WmMeeker

My feeling is that they make a very good product, their stores are always clean and kept up and the help is always good. As long as that is the case, I will eat there. But I also agree that religion is religion and should be kept at home and in your church. It has no place in business or in the public square. That does not mean your moral principals should not guide you while at work or at school but you should respect the Gods of other people as well. As for them being closed on Sunday, I think it is fine if that is what they want because it is their business but I also think it is rather foolish to have a blanket policy like that. For example, the malls are filled with shoppers on Sunday. It is one of their busiest days. Perhaps Monday would be a better day for the mall locations to close. Sunday is not really the Sabbath anyway. It is Saturday. God didn't change the day, man did.

There is so much theologically wrong with this, I would like to take it apart point by point, but when you do that you are reprimanded for bringing religion into the forum. But any mention of Chick-Fil-A brings out these kind of baseless comments.

So, will limit my response to this "broader" concept instead of go toe to toe. To tell an evangelical Christian to keep their religious expression inside the walls of a church is to not know what an evangelical Christian is. The word 'evangel' means 'good news.' Good news is to be shared, spoken, communicated, yes, even broadcast. While some would want evangelical Christians to keep their beliefs to themselves, it goes against the very core of what they are spiritually called (even commanded) to do. Some may not like it, no one has to heed the message, but a true evangelical Christians will not hide what they are, it should infuse all they do.

The Cathys are prime examples of this. You have the right to not support them or their business. But you don't have the right to tell them how to express their beliefs.

[Saintmarks]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

So which is it? Does Cathy's business and faith/spiritual convictions go hand in hand, or has he made a separation of the two? You were seemingly arguing the former previously.

Drawing the line between their expressing of their religious convictions vs. the company doing it. Don't see why that is difficult to comprehend.

[ATLTJL]

I eat at Chick-fil-a occasionally and I think it's a good product.

I don't agree with Truett's personal politics at all, though, especially being closed on Sundays, which he says is to make sure his employees have time to spend with their families. That's pretty dumb when you consider the average fast food employee is a part-timer who is probably already off Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and has plenty of family time. That employee would probably appreciate the opportunity to work additional hours and make more money way more than the chance to stay home with family.

But the biggest thing I really wish Chick-fiil-a would change is the excessive packaging it uses. Some locations FINALLY started offering recycling for the foam cups they use (good job, about 15 years after everybody else!), but even aside from that, I seem to have much more trash to throw away after eating at Chick-fil-a than I do at any other fast food joint. They use excessive packaging on every item they sell. I'm pretty sure Jesus would disapprove.

Everything else that was said is true. The stores are generally clean and the staff friendly. What always amazed me was how even in locations like downtown Atlanta where no other fast food restaurant can seem to find help capable of even looking customers in the eye, Chick-fil-a always seems to have friendly help. I asked an employee how this is achieved one day, and she told me because hiring at Chick-fil-a is generally handled informally through networks at local churches. I don't know if it's true or not, but whatever they are doing seems to work.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

Drawing the line between their expressing of their religious convictions vs. the company doing it. Don't see why that is difficult to comprehend.

That concept isn't difficult to comprehend at all, but if you think Cathy was merely referencing his own personal religious convictions in the interview you mentioned and wasn't speaking on behalf of the company, then you are quite mistaken. Read it for yourself: Baptist Press -'Guilty as charged,' Cathy says of Chick-fil-A's stand on biblical & family values - News with a Christian Perspective

[WanderingImport]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Cathy use Twitter to express some of his personal religious opinions with Chick-fil-A thrown in there somewhere? My memory is a bit fuzzy since that was probably sometime last year. (I believe it had to do with his feelings against gay marriage)

Either way, I agree with a lot of what some previous posters said. The product is a very good one and the staff friendliness can't be beat. I will continue to buy their product for those reasons, but I completely disagree with his conservative opinions and how he intertwines them with his business. It alienates A LOT of potential customers.

[Newsboy]

Originally Posted by WanderingImport

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Cathy use Twitter to express some of his personal religious opinions with Chick-fil-A thrown in there somewhere? My memory is a bit fuzzy since that was probably sometime last year. (I believe it had to do with his feelings against gay marriage)

Either way, I agree with a lot of what some previous posters said. The product is a very good one and the staff friendliness can't be beat. I will continue to buy their product for those reasons, but I completely disagree with his conservative opinions and how he intertwines them with his business. It alienates A LOT of potential customers.

... and yet, they have no shortage of customers and perhaps the strongest brand loyalty of any company in the fast-food industry. They had nearly $5 billion in sales last year, and Truett Cathy is one of the 400 richest men in the world.

Some of you simply don't get it: By being closed on Sunday, and denying themselves an extra day of profits, the Cathy family sends a HUGE message about their values, beliefs and convictions. It's not about the money to them, obviously.

Here's a little of what FORBES has to say about Cathy and the company:

"Truett Cathy's Chick-fil-A chain became a cultural flashpoint in 2012 after its foundation got flagged for donating millions to groups lobbying against equal marriage rights. That plus controversial remarks by Dan Cathy, his oldest son and company president, sparked an LGBT "kiss-in" at some of chain's 1,700 stores. An LGBT activist spoke in January about his new friendship with Dan following the controversy; also the foundation's latest tax filing showed it had not given money to antigay organizations in the most recent tax year. All the attention may have boosted growth as sales rose half-billion to an estimated $4.6 billion in 2012."

S. Truett Cathy - Forbes

All this angst toward Chick-fil-A reminds me of the hatred spewed at Cracker Barrell 20 years ago, when they made the mistake of "firing" gay employees. I know people that STILL won't eat at Cracker Barrell even though that policy was reversed years ago and the company was among the very first in the nation to offer domestic partner benefits to all employees.