Who is trying to destroy the lives of people like the bigot who owns Chick-A-Fil? Has anyone gone in there and shot up the place? Not that I’ve heard about. Do people try to destroy the loves and lives of gay people. Hell, that very same Bible that supposedly only supports marriage between a man and a woman (and, as it was originally designated in this country by its “Christian” founders, of the same color) says homosexuality should be a crime punishable by death).
Get your facts right, please!
I had an uncle who worked for Mars. It was (and is) in Slough.
Reading has Microsoft, Pepsi, Gillette, Thames Water, a university, used to have Oscar Wilde’s prison (recently closed) and a BBC place which I think has closed down. Haven’t been there for a while.
TCMF-2L
He is a bigot who opposes giving full human rights to gay people and who actively supports causes that oppose gay rights. Conservatives like to label their bigoted attacks on gay people as ‘supporting traditional marriage’ because it sounds better than what they actually do, but absolutely no one has any issue with him supporting what he considers traditional marriage - the problem is the attacks on other people’s marriages. The only one ‘trying to destroy the lives of people’ is him and people like him.
Also the position that people have an obligation to patronize a particular person’s business or be guilty of “trying to destroy lives” is… rather unusual, and certainly not consistent with general free market principles. It’s kind of odd to have an explicitly anti-capitalist position thrown in with those ‘traditional’ notes.
Would you tell Mr. [del]Homosexual Hater[/del] Traditional Marriage Defender that he had to patronize a gay bar? Or attend a same sex marriage. I don’t think so.
Well, I support gay rights, and I am not going for the “traditional marriage” defense, but I also would never go into a Chick-A-Fil, een to use the bathroom. Don’t tell me exercizing my rights is destroying people’s lives.
It’s an American company that came here, we didn’t want it. So it’s closing. Simple as.
We don’t talk about religion here. Ever. It’s impolite.
So this company comes here, brings all that baggage, religion in our face.
No chicken is good enough for that nonsense.
On top of that, the CEO using that “religion” and chicken money, to try to squash LGBTQ+ rights?
That’s a lot of us pissed off.
The average person won’t go, the more politic of us will protest, the shopping centre makes a business decision.
You don’t notice the inherent self-contradiction?
Amazing how many people think that opening a business somehow forces people to patronize that business, so the business must be shut down. I thought if you didn’t like the business, you can go somewhere else. Like I’ve been told I can change the channel.
There are many businesses I refuse to patronize because they are corporate sponsors of Planned Parenthood. I’m not trying to shut them down so no one else can use their services; I just don’t want them to have any of my money.
As for ruined lives, how about bakers, florists, pizza parlors,and videographers? People who could have gone to another business have instead attempted to force these people to participate in ceremonies the owners believed were against their religion, and managed to get tribunals to force them to shut down their businesses. One has even been threatened with the loss of her house.
Refusing to participate in someone’s ritual does not deny their human rights. Forcing followers of a certain religion out of the public square absolutely does.
Forced to patronize? C’mon, nobody thinks that, no one has stated that. Well, you just did, but c’mon.
To sum it up: People have a right to choose what businesses they patronize, but businesses do not have a right to pick and choose which customers they will allow to use those services. Sounds okay to me.
I work in a store owned by Chassidic Jewish people that is open and allowed to sell anything on Sunday. We do not turn away Christians on Sunday, or even Muslim women who wear the traditional Muslim clothing, complete with face covering. I cashier for them, despite my feminist stance.
And I even keep my mouth shut my a male asks for a male cashier. As someone told me the first time it happened “You have a right to think it. You don’t have a right to say it.”
Sorry, was going from memory. It’s Mars Electronics (a division of Mars) which is HQ’ed in Reading. My ex worked there.
Full disclosure, I went to Reading Uni.
Nope, three lots of people.
The first lot, let us call them standard British, find any mention of religion uncomfortable, and making a statement through food weird. So the idea that going to a particular restaurant might seem to make you stand on any end of an argument, (pro/anti LGBT+ rights) unappealing. They’re the majority.
The second lot, let’s call them nuBritish, find the Chick-fil-a philosophy offensive. They’re the protesters, the boycotters.
So those two groups added up, they vastly outnumber the last faction, who would turn up to be contrary, we will call them religoBritish and they would turn up once.
So the centre made a business decision.
I guess that’s a point some people have trouble really believing at face value. If these people call themselves Christians, why don’t they follow Christ’s principal message: Love thy neighbor. Not Love thy neighbor IF.
Has that happened?
Trying to frame this as anti-Christian does a disservice to the majority of Christians who are not bigots, and are not in any way affected by anti-discrimination laws. Christians are not being forced out of the public square - that small minority of Americans (not all of whom are Christian) who are so twisted up by hate that they won’t take money from the people they despise are being forced out of the public square.
I am guessing because I’m not certain, but I think they would like any businesses that are on campus property to have similar nondiscrimination policies to Purdue’s - and presumably Chick-Fil-A does not.
Some odd things about the entire dust up are that the folks who don’t want it on campus are completely fine with having one open up across the street from campus. Also, Purdue recently gave Pappa John his 5 million dollars back after he was recorded saying racist things on a private phone call to shareholders. So there is quite a bit of inconsistency on both sides of this.
This whole ‘if you don’t like the business, you can go somewhere else’ certainly isn’t remotely anything that the Christian right practices. Just look at the trials and tribulations of trying to run a gay bar or abortion clinic anywhere near these ‘good’ Christians.
No one has been forced to participate in ceremonies, if you’re going to claim that provide a cite. In general, if you want to operate a public business, then you have to be actually open to the public, you don’t get to gain the benefits of a business license while putting up ‘no negroes’ or ‘no gays’ signs, at least in areas that actually oppose open bigotry. I’m perfectly fine with bigots lives being ‘ruined’ by them not being allowed to operate businesses that try to deny service to innocent people.
It’s also interesting how conservatives, who often go on at great length about law and order, will turn around in a case like this and insist that they don’t have to follow the law when it comes to themselves. Apparently ‘law and order’ shutting down businesses that break the law is only good when it applies to someone else’s business.
Baronelle Stutzman, Florist in Washington State
Loving my neighbor does not mean forget Scripture and celebrate what culture says I should
It’s not hate to refuse to participate in a wedding any more than it is hate for a t-shirt company to refuse to print shirts with Leviticus 18. If disapproving of someone’s lifestyle is hate, what does that say about this board?
It’s really not even about gay rights. You don’t see any of these people threatening to boycott businesses run by devout Muslims who believe that Islam is correct about homosexuality.
This is despite the fact that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and will almost certainly overtake Christianity as the #1 religion in the world within our lifetime. Demographic projections indicate that atheists will remain a very tiny minority for the foreseeable future, despite how many atheists love to fantasize that the world is “Waking up” and becoming less religious. Nope. The world isn’t getting less religious -just less Christian.
Yes, western liberal atheists/homosexuals, the Christian chicken restaurant people are by far your most terrifying nemesis. In the future when the Muslims are the majority religious demographic, I am totally sure that they will have nothing but love and respect for your homosexuality and atheism.
As far as I know, I’d keep on reacting the same way to Chick-Fil-A if they were run by devout Muslims — or, for that matter, by atheists or agnostics — with no other change; if I’m not currently boycotting a given business, it’s presumably because they haven’t brought stuff to my attention the way Chick-Fil-A has.
Feel free to put it to a test: if there’s a business you believe I should boycott — since you can make out a case that it’s significantly similar to Chick-Fil-A — then let me know about them, and I’ll do my best to let you know a thing or two right back.
No. Refusing people is not the same as refusing a message. Refusing people for how they were born (how God made them) is a hateful action. Refusing a message that promotes hate for people is an anti-hate action. It is an act of LOVE.
I will remind you that the Bible is silent about gay marriage. I will also remind you that, even if it were sinful, the Bible never says to not do business with sinners. Jesus was a carpenter. Paul was a tentmaker. Do you really think that they never did business with anyone but Christians? Jesus literally ate with sinners. And Paul earned his own money so he wouldn’t be a financial burden on those he preached to. They didn’t argue that they were "participating in sin’ to get out of it.
I also remind you that homosexuality is not a choice or a lifestyle, any more than being straight. It has been proven that people are homosexual or heterosexual from a young age, and that there is no ability to change. It is only called a “lifestyle” so that people feel safe hating it. They know that the Bible preaches against bigotry. It calms the cognitive dissonance by allowing the fiction that actions against homosexuality are hating the sin, not the sinner.
Oh, and Miller is right. It is insulting to us Christians who do not buy into this nonsense for you to use our God as an excuse. The hatred against gay marriage is because it is different, not because the Bible forbids it.
Honestly if you’re going to the UK to eat *any *food, there are some issues we need to discuss.