Posted on 08/03/2012 8:34:38 PM PDT by SmithL
ATLANTA (AP) — When President Barack Obama said same-sex couples should have the right to marry, it was national news for a few days before the presidential campaign and the country went back to business as usual.
Yet weeks after a fast-food executive doubled down on his opposition to gay marriage, debate rages on about equality, religious values and free speech. "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" on Wednesday, with supporters flooding the chain's franchises around the country, was countered with "kiss-ins" by same-sex couples at assorted locations Friday, long after Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's initial comments to a religious publication touched off the clash.
That's an unusual amount of staying power for what initially looked like just another skirmish over a hot-button question.
Coursing throughout the conversations on social media, in letters to the editor and in long lines to buy chicken sandwiches is the sense among proud Southerners that the outcry over Cathy's comments smacks of regional stereotyping. When public officials in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago tell a Southern icon such as Chick-fil-A that it's no longer welcome, and that Cathy should keep his opinions to himself, many in the Atlanta-based chain's home region hear more than a little northern condescension.
"Maybe the reaction is just because we're Southerners," said Rose Mason, who was lunching Friday at a Chick-fil-A in suburban Atlanta.
Mason, who described herself as Christian, said she grew up in New York City. Now, she said, "I deal with my sister telling me we're a little backward. People have this idea that we're just behind on everything. So they view anything we say through that (perception)."
Cathy, a devout Southern Baptist whose family has always been outspoken about its faith, sparked the controversy...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I was still referencing Wednesday, but I am hearing of heavy business even today Friday.
I also believe the Left has a rude awakening ahead in November.
Thank you for the report. That was good to ehar.
Thank you for the report. That was good to ehar. Hmmm, “HEAR”. LOL
But that's beside the point here. If we fight over gays and their perversions, ignoring the big issue of freedom of speech and belief, we'll lose the latter and, as a consequence, the former. It's really that simple. In our law and society, it's simply not true that "Before you get to 'constitutional' rights expressed in written form there is that 'beginning' that certain unalienable rights come from the Creator," because the Declaration of Independence is not law, and the Constitution is (or used to be...).
That may not be what God says is the best case, but we have His world to live in as we find it, and we're to work within that world to forward His plan. Right now, in that world, it's more important to preserve our right to speak out against the abominations we abhor than it is just to speak out in a given case against those abominations while our right to speak out is under attack -- as it certainly is now.
Sure, we all need to stand against this evil -- I'm not saying you're wrong to speak out -- but let's stand where the battle is, not where we (or they) want it to be.
Martin Luther said, If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
Free speech, and free thought, are where this battle rages, my FRiend, and if we flinch on this one, we'll never get to the issues of homosexual perversion or gay marriage. We'll be silenced.
Tim Dunkin has a pretty good Christian perspective on it -- it's all about the other guys trying to tell us to sit down and shut up, and that's where we've got to confront them.
Stupidity riegns, would they be battling the muslims who have a far more radical view of the gay agenda? no! It’s about freedom fo speech fools
That’s pretty insane. Equivalent to saying pigs can fly even though they don’t have wings.
The reason there is so much ado about Chick-fil-a stating they are against gay marriage and so little about Obama saying he was for it, is because the homosexuals know that left alone to think about it, people will come to the conclusion that gay marriage is wrong, and that these are people doing something wrong. That is why all the hoopla they are creating about it. Note well the other side is doing nothing at all about the issue.
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Ummm, almost a million citizens participated in supporting traditional marriage
...and a few hundred came to 'kiss in'?
That's NOT countered...
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Yes, what is with that... Saw the same thing in Savannah last 2 days.
Especially if you happen to notice that there happen to be twenty cameras pointing at you.
The MSM better be trying to find a way to get themselves off the hook. After Obama is gone, they are next.
The MSM better be trying to find a way to get themselves off the hook. After Obama is gone, they are next.
Specially...
Very muscular of old Martin Luther. This is a rather different POV than we often get from fatalistic chiliasts, who expect the imminent unfoldment of the Eschaton, and who seem to require a compleat proof of human incompetence (this would include collapse of all the American political institutions and constitutions) for their climactic epiphany.
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