The
Chicago Republican Party says it will file a complaint with the
Illinois Dept. of Human Rights and Attorney General Lisa Madigan
after a local alderman vowed to stop Chick-fil-A from opening a
second restaurant in the Windy City.
Alderman
Joe Moreno said he will block the Atlanta-based company’s expansion
plans because he disagrees with the owner’s affirmation of
traditional marriage.
Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel supported Moreno, saying, “Chick-fil-A values
are not Chicago values.”
Chris
Cleveland, vice chair of the Chicago Republican Party, told Fox News
that Moreno’s actions “constitute clear religious
discrimination.”
“Alderman
Moreno has violated the First amendment rights of Chick-fil-A and the
individuals in the corporation by bringing the hammer of government
down upon them purely because they disagree with the religious view
of the owner,” Cleveland said.
Chick-fil-A
faced similar threats in Mountain View, Calif. and Boston – by
Mayor Thomas Menino has since backed off his vow to ban the privately
owned company.
Chick-fil-A’s
president, Dan Cathy, ruffled feathers nationwide when he told
Baptist Press that his company was “guilty as charged” when it
came to supporting traditional marriage – a statement many critics
said was an attack on same-sex unions.
Gay
rights advocates have also expressed fury over the company’s
financial support to a number of evangelical Christian ministries
like the Family Research Council and the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes – groups called anti-gay by detractors.
“This
solidifies Chick-fil-A as being closely aligned with some of the most
vicious anti-gay voices in the country,” said Carlos Maza of
Equality Matters told Associated Press.
But
Cleveland said this issue has nothing to do with gay marriage.
“That’s
not the issue,” he told Fox News. “It’s about religious
freedom. Businesses in the city of Chicago should be able to operate
without fear of saying the wrong thing.”
Chick-fil-A
posted more than $4.1 billion in sales last year, most of it below
the Mason-Dixon Line. Just 14 of its restaurants are in the six
states and the District of Columbia where gay marriage is legal.
Illinois, which does not have same-sex marriage, has around a dozen,
though only one in Chicago.
The
Cathy family has never hid its Southern Baptist faith. Since Dan
Cathy’s father, Truett, opened the first Chick-fil-A in 1967, the
restaurants have been closed on Sundays, and the company refused to
reconsider during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, sacrificing profits.
It also boasts that the Chick-fil-A Bowl is the only college football
bowl game with an invocation.
Roger
Oldham, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said many
Christians want to support businesses owned by fellow believers, and
the loyalty intensifies “when Christians see a fellow Christian
being persecuted.”
“They
will come out of the woodwork when a theologically based position is
being politicized by individuals for their own purposes,” he said.
The
company has also drawn support from Billy Graham, Sarah Palin, former
Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Fox News Channel host Mike
Huckabee – who launched “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” on
August 1.
2Pe
2:6- And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes
condemned [them] with an overthrow, making [them] an ensample unto
those that after should live ungodly;
Gen
13:13- But the men of Sodom [were] wicked and sinners before the
LORD exceedingly.
Isa
3:9- The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and
they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide [it] not. Woe unto their
soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.
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