Henson issues statement about Chick-Fila-A

[bandit]

I think we have to be very careful when making a blanket statement like that, though. You can't just say 'Christians do this' or 'Liberals do that.' That's a gross generalization. The problem is always going to be that when you have the people that preach the loudest, they are going to tend to be the more extreme example of a particular belief. TEND to be, not always.
I also think that the issue of homosexuality is a tough one for many people because it strikes them as unnatural. Theft and adultery and even murder can sometimes be seen as more forgivable because they stem from a place or an emotion they could more easily fathom. Who hasn't wanted something they couldn't have...be it a an object or a person. Murder might be harder to understand but even then, people reach a breaking point and it becomes insanity. The whole issue of a man loving another man or a woman loving another woman becomes something more alien. It's something people might not even begin to understand because it goes against what is considered to be the natural order of things.

Look, I have come right out and said that I am a bisexual. I am and I don't agree with the idea that there is anything immoral in that kind of love. For me, I don't often fall in love but when I do, it's with a person. It isn't about what their gender might be. It's simply my connection to another human being. Both genders have beauty.

Anyway, my point is that homosexual relationships are always a touchy subject because of that added conundrum it creates in people's minds. But to say that 'Christians' do this or 'Christians' do that is just too broad of a statement. Let's just say that Mr. Cathy has an idea that I do not agree with. Let's say that I respect him for being firm in his idea all the same. I'm just not comfortable with the idea that he would lobby to prevent people from having the choice. For me the problem is that we are responsible for the way that we live our own lives and the way we treat others. I make my own choices in this life. I would never prevent someone from making a choice. Not about something like this. That is where I object. I don't think it's right for Mr. Cathy to work so hard to take that choice away. I don't even know that is a choice I would MAKE for myself. But even if it isn't something I would want, I wouldn't want someone else to decide that for me.

Alright, I've rambled enough. Let's just not make such broad statements about people.
I want to move on. ^_-V

 

[dwayne1115]

I think as far as restaurants and retail stores there main concern should be customer service and giving the best customer service to every person that walks into there doors. You don't have to know a persons background to serve them food or sell them an item. I have done it for years and could care less what my customer dose when they leave my store. (unless they call and say bad things to my manager)
You can not give great customer service if you come out and bash one group of people for the way they want to live. My thing is if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.

 

[jvcarroll]

I also think it's commendable how the Jim Henson Company has stood by their statement without diving further into the media circus even when their toys were later and unjustly attacked for being unsafe. Their behavior has been graceful and classy.

 

[Walter]

I don't eat at Chick-Fil-A
.. Gonzo and Camilla are both good friends to me.

 

[bandit]

Okay, so while I think 'HATE' may be too strong a word to use for what Christians feel....I do tend to agree with pretty much everything else this girl has to say. Check it out!

 

[Drtooth]

Again, the main problem is that most Christians act like being homosexual is the only sin there is, and a tremendous sin at that... it's if someone is a thief, an adulterer, a murder, they take a "God have mercy and help them" attitude towards them but if someone is a homosexual, they take this, "Spawn of Satan, rebuke them" attitude.

Again, there's a LOT WORSE things that any one person can be than a homosexual, so all things consider, if a Christians are going to spend their every waking moment condemning a specific group of people, they could direct that energy to people who actually do actual harm, like people who ransack other people's home and make off with their irreplacables, or people who go around their spouse's or significant other's backs and fool around with other people, or people who run around killing other people for no reason, than people who just happen to love other people of their own sex.

That's my only beef. No one has explained what it even means, except for Oscarfan. I don't care how "good intentioned" everyone else is, it's a MINOR thing at best, and a suggestion at most. I've said it before, a lot of it isn't religious at all. It's good old fashion prejudice that just so happens to be justified because the bible mentions it. then there are those who take it to fact. Those people, as good intentioned as they think they are, still manage to act like it's the biggest thing, even though it's not even in the 10 Commandments.

And I don't get this "religion can't change because what's written there is written there." That's what religion has been doing all along. Why do you think we have, not just different religions, but different splinter religions of the same one? What do you think Martin Luther did? And some of it doesn't even require changing anything in the bible, but rather a religion's culture.

 

[RedPiggy]

The Bible--for those who are Christians--is not a suggestion book, it is the reference that they look to for guidance, and it is the Bible, not individuals, which takes a stand on homosexual behavior.

As a Christian, agreed. However, it is kinda irksome when one abomination gets all the pressed but the others, like eating shrimp and wearing cotton-polyester blends, aren't.

The thing is, please don't call it evil.

Maybe not, but their vindictive slander against the Jim Henson Company, implying that kids won't be safe even though they admit no one has been harmed, IS evil. The JHC didn't go around saying C-F-A (or as I now call it, CFU) is toxic and will kill your children if they eat it even though no one has been harmed, after all.

People boycotting CFA...honestly, its a christian run chain. Were people seriously not expecting something like this to come out?

I think I've only eaten some chicken noodle soup from them once or twice in my entire life. I just like beef better, LOL.

However it is in keeping with the old covenant with God and it is a popular belief that Jesus' coming changed that particular rule, but not some other ones. Those types of contrivances always make my head explode, but in a fun, Muppety way.

The food thing is like the circumcision thing: it's amazing how fast rules are thrown out when you're trying to increase club membership and the Greeks and Romans wanted to eat shellfish and keep their skin on, so to speak. However, being gay had to be thrown out because Paul said so (not Jesus) and because people were probably snickering about Jesus' preference with hanging out with 12 men and decrying marriage and family life at just about every turn.

As far as clean/unclean being abolished, that's addressed in Acts, which basically chronicles the earliest days of Christianity.

A lot of what Christianity did to differentiate itself from Judaism has to do with the politics of Greco-Romans vs Jews.

Actually, Paul was married

We should donate to some charity in that poor woman's memory

Did the Muppets ever say anything about it? I don't remember them ever saying anything about it. When did they say it?

George Takei had a hilarious FB pic: Kermit and Piggy, supporting marriage equality since 1984 (and it had a pic of their wedding from MTM). LOL.

No but it is very Capitalistic, hehe. They don't want to lose customers.

I don't think that's much of a problem. As it's been said, their views aren't a big secret and their customers will stand by them no matter what, whether for the ideas or the food.
To resort to dirty tricks (slander/libel) for fear of losing customers implies you KNOW what you said was way off base.

A very nice rebuttal. I see you responded specifically to the author's lumping homosexuals with pedophiles and mass murderers.

CFU's support isn't just for monogamous hetero marriage
According to one of the comments on that page, they also endorse some Daddy/Daughter purity thing, and if you look it up on Religion Dispatches, it's ... ewwwww. Supposedly it's innocent, but it raises an eyebrow, to be sure.

Second, I believe that God's word says that homosexuality is a sin. But, I acknowledge that many people don't believe in God's word and don't accept it as a standard for morality

Something that may help is learning the background for the rules about it. Paul's against it but he (and Jesus) rarely have anything good to say about "normal" families either. The OT references historically involve pagan temple prostitution, not loving, informed homosexual relationships between consenting adults. We should also question an "abomination" when wearing different fabrics also is called one. Methinks some biblical authors needed a bit of a perspective check, especially when faced with dashing babies' heads against rocks and killing women suspected of adultery.
Much of what we see as allowed or forbidden in the bible refers to practices that the "average joes" at the time preferred, and there was the constant need to separate Hebrews from the Canaanites, even though they are historically related. It's less about "real" morality and more about identity propaganda.

I think what some on the left might be missing is the fact that Christians feel as though their rights are being ignored.

A somewhat valid concept, but since I'm aware that Christians in other countries are outright tortured and killed, forgive me if I have little patience with what constitutes "persecution" here in the US.

This is not a trivial issue.

It's not trivial but it's also paranoid. No one is forcing anyone to marry anyone.

Would the law require that churches are no longer be aloud to preach what they believe the Word of God to say on this issue (link)?

We don't let people mutilate genitals and sacrifice animals, neither.

Would the law require that churches be willing to perform marriages to gay couples even if the church disagrees with the practice as immoral (link)? Doing so would violate the conscience of the church.

And if there were no wall between church and state, that might be a problem.

Would churches be required to hire gays?

At church, no. At secular institutions (hospitals and such), yes. If you want government funds, you must play by government rules.

When they expressed faith in him, he said "go and sin no more."

This was said to ONE town bicycle and it was just to get her away from a situation where the riders of said bicycle were ready to kill her hypocritically.

Slavery is mentioned in the Bible, therefore some Christians thought it should be continued.

Biblical marriage includes incest, multiple wives, and concubines (da gals on da side). I think David and Solomon alone had more action than anyone else in the bible combined.

My goal is to simply show that Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin are motivated primarily by conscience and not hatred.

Indeed, but it's a rather uninformed conscience.
How can we ever have a paradise where the lion lays down with the lamb if we always threaten the lion for not being man enough to just eat the lamb?

Numerous verses in both the Old and the New Testaments speak against homosexuality.

And as Christians we should care about Jesus' opinion on the matter.
Oh, that's right, He didn't have one.

 

[Drtooth]

A somewhat valid concept, but since I'm aware that Christians in other countries are outright tortured and killed, forgive me if I have little patience with what constitutes "persecution" here in the US.

A) That biblical Paul's a complete Jerkbutt, isn't he? Thanks for the misconceptions Paul.

B) I've been saying that for years. Religion does a GOOD job persecuting themselves, don't they? Look at the Catholic Nuns who are focusing their crusade more on helping the poor and destitute and sickly (y'know, like Jesus actually said), and how they're getting flack for not forcing anti-gay teachings and anti-contraceptive messages that, at best, come out of religious culture. Monty Python had the best sting about the latter that I can't post here, but I'm sure we all know quite well. Why, in Christianity, is the stuff Christ actually said the afterthought?

C) if persecution means you have Bill Mahr make some lame documentary and Brian Griffin (a cartoon) makes some snarky comments, not to mention to be told that you have to respect the laws of the land (even on compromise friendly terms), and my personal favorite, the idiotic "Happy Holidays"/Holiday tree passive aggressiveness... consider yourselves lucky. You're not being thrown to the lions, you're not being put into camps to die... you're not even fighting against a splinter of your religion like in Ireland. You're getting a bunch of passive aggressiveness tossed at you. In my house, that was an average day.

 

[jvcarroll]

We all know that the CFA company gives money to directly influence government policy against gay people, but let's take that out of the equation for now and read the statements again.

Here's an excerpt of what Dan Cathy, President of Chick-Fil-A said once the controversy started heating up:

“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."

Basically, this is a statement of bullying. He's not just stating an opinion. He's manipulating listeners into believing that equal rights for gay people will lead to a direct harm toward America from God. It's a sleazy tactic of implying that giving gays rights will somehow take them away from others. It's lunacy. It's only fitting that this restaurant uses cows sporting "end of the world" sort of propaganda signs that read "eat more chicken" in their advertising. If you listen to this audio link to his complete statement, you'll find it even more condescending and inflammatory toward people who disagree with him. He feels the need to "parent" other people who grow up differently. Wow!

Can't we all celebrate our differences rather than preach that our ways are the superior?

Now, this is what the only statement the Jim Henson Company made after CFA's stand against gay marriage:

"The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD."

There's not any direct condemnation of CFA or Christians from Henson, but they're receiving so much hate. There are a lot of gay rights supporters [like me] who have made statements and I can understand some attacking them, but not Henson. Not at all.

Marriage was not invented by Christians. It existed in society long before any author wrote one word of what we know of today as the Bible. In many contexts has been used to demote women to the level of a man's property. I'm not claiming that's necessarily the Christian view, but there's a history of problematic Biblically accepted marriage practices that are not accepted by most modern Christians. Marriage as an institution has been applied many ways by many cultures throughout human history. True, gays have been excluded until recently but that does not mean it is right to do so. Marriage for love is a relatively new concept too! Who here would support mandatory arranged marriages?

 

[Pinkflower7783]

I posted this photo on my Facebook this morning and I'm gonna post it here too and then "unwatch" this thread simply because there's nothing else for me to say on this matter as I'm just ending back where I started.