Gay rights activists kissed at Chick-fil-A storesacross the U.S., just days after the company set a sales record when customersflocked to the restaurants to show support for the fast-food chain president'sopposition to gay marriage.
The dueling displays of activism this week demonstrated an unusual amount ofstaying power over a flap that erupted weeks ago. The prolonged controversyspeaks to underlying regional tensions in the U.S. that transcend the issue ofgay rights.
Coursing throughout the conversations on social media, in letters to the editorand in long lines to buy chicken sandwiches is the sense among proudSoutherners that the outcry over Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's commentssmacks of regional stereotyping. When public officials in Boston, Philadelphiaand Chicago tell a Southern icon such as Chick-fil-A that it's no longerwelcome, and that Cathy should keep his opinions to himself, many in theAtlanta-based chain's home region hear more than a little northern condescension.
"Maybe the reaction is just because we're Southerners," said RoseMason, 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 viewanything we say through that (perception)."
Cathy, a devout Southern Baptist whose family has always been outspoken aboutits faith, sparked the controversy by telling the Baptist Press that he and hisfamily-owned restaurant chain are "guilty as charged" for openly —and financially — supporting groups that advocate for "the biblicaldefinition of a family unit." He later added that the United States is"inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him andsay, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage."
For Marci Alt, organizer of a protest Friday at a Chick-fil-A in the relativelyliberal Atlanta suburb of Decatur, it's Cathy's financial backing ofconservative groups such as the Family Research Council that takes theconversation beyond merely what he said.
Alt said Cathy has a constitutional right to speak out against same-sexmarriage.
"But when he puts a pen to paper and writes a check to an organizationthat is about to squash my equal rights, I have a problem with that."
Cathy's comments were in keeping with the tradition established by his father,Truett Cathy, who started the chain in 1967 and never allowed franchises toopen on Sundays.
Beyond Friday's organized displays of affection, there were other signs thatthe furor still had legs. Police were investigating graffiti on the side of aChick-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, California, that read "Tastes likehate" and had a painting of a cow, in reference to the chain's ubiquitousads featuring cows encouraging people to eat poultry.
In Tucson, Arizona, an executive at a medical manufacturing company lost hisjob after filming himself verbally attacking a Chick-fil-A employee and postingthe video online.
For William Klaus, a 26-year-old X-ray technician with traditional views onmarriage, the debate starts at and ends with Cathy's liberty to voice hisbeliefs.
"He said what he said. Freedom of speech. Bottom line," Klaus said ata Chick-fil-A in Jackson, Mississippi.
However, that goes for Cathy's critics, too, said Klaus, adding that he stoppedby the Jackson store simply to pick up some good food.
"For someone to blast him for his opinion, so be it — they have thatright."