Clearly, it was no accident that Chick-fil-A‘s leader, Dan Cathy, announced recently that he had made “mistakes” by publicly condemning same-sex marriage and promised to not interject his personal beliefs against same-sex marriage into the public sphere anymore. Cathy even courted and reportedly has become friendly with the head of Campus Pride, a national college LGBT group.
Because less than one month later, USAToday was invited to tour the Chick-fil-A HQ, so Cathy and his top brass could announce massive changes to the $4.5 billion Christian chicken retailer’s menu, and his hopes of  conquering the liberal — and increasingly more so, given the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio — New York City.
Currently, the only place NYC’s Chick-fil-A devotees can get their fix of the Atlanta-based purveyor’s chicken and waffle fries is a licensee restaurant at New York University.
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has just 12 restaurants in New York City — and only one in Manhattan. McDonald’s has 24. Burger King just five.
“Chick-fil-A will open 108 restaurants this year — most of them urban and a good chunk of them in New York City, says Woody Faulk, vice president of design and innovation,” USAToday reports. [Bolding ours]
Dan Cathy’s recent promotion to CEO after his father, Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, retired, is no surprise, even after he put his family’s company and charitable foundation in the national spotlight by slamming same-sex marriage.
Despite what anti-gay groups and complicit media outlets would like you to believe, in 2012 Dan Cathy said a lot more than just “guilty as charged” when asked about his support for “traditional marriage.”
“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’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.â€
“It’s very clear in Romans chapter 1, if we look at society today, we see all the twisted up kind of stuff that’s going on. Washington trying to redefine the definition of marriage and all the other kinds of things that we go—if you go upstream from that, in Romans chapter 1, you will see that because we have not acknowledged God and because we have not thanked God, that we have been left victim to the foolishness of our own thoughts, and as result, we are suffering the consequences of a society and culture who has not acknowledged God or not thanked God—he’s left us to a deprived mind. It’s tragic and we live in a culture of that today.â€
“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, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.
“We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.â€
On top of that, Chick-fil-A has donated millions of dollars, via its Winshape Foundation, to anti-gay groups and causes.
Dan Cathy may have decided to stop his public Bible-based attacks on same-sex marriage, but he’s also made clear he hasn’t changed his views. That’s totally his right.
Chick-fil-A can bring “a good chunk” of 108 new restaurants to New York City. Maybe they’ll do well. But New York City’s residents and visitors should know the truth.
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