Thousands “occupy” Chick-fil-A
By Tom Quiner
Thousands ate lunch at Chick-fil-A today at Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines.
“Is this the line for Chick-fil-A?”
Stranger after stranger came up to me with that question.
Yes, I said, this is the line for Chick-fil-A.
“Alright! I love it! Where’s the end of the line?’
I pulled out binoculars for them to see how far they had to walk just to get in line.
“How long will it take?”
I’ve been in line for about an hour-and-a-half.”
“Sounds good. Nice talking to you.”
No one minded the wait.
Catholics, Baptists, and evangelical Christians were everywhere.
This was the scene at Jordan Creek Mall on Wednesday, August 1st.
Mark your calendar. This was a watershed day in America. This was the day the faithful struck back.
Two events coalesced on Wednesday. One was the “Occupy Chick-Fil-A” event. This was much different than Occupy Wall Street where folks gathered in droves to revile the productive and besmirch public property.
Occupy Chick-fil-A was all about supporting an organization that had been besmirched by the political Left. This fast-food giant ran afoul of liberal thought-police when COO Dan Cathy was quoted in the Baptist Press uttering these reviling words:
“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”
Even worse, their mission statement was repugnant to elites:
“To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”
CNN took Mr. Cathy’s remarks and repositioned them as being against gay marriage rather than being for a “biblical definition of the family.” For the record, Chick-fil-A employs folks with same-sex attractions and welcomes them as customers.
That wasn’t good enough for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and his counterparts in Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. who indicated Chick-fil-A wasn’t welcome in their towns.
These liberal mayors, famous for representing a religion, secular humanism, built on the pillars of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion, felt comfortable demonstrating their intolerance for people and companies who think differently than they do and dare publicly speak it.
The Thought Police had struck.
Mike Huckabee spoke up and suggested we make August 1stChick-fil-A day. And the rest is history. People of faith flooded these little
Catholics, Baptists, and evangelical Christians patiently waited in line in defense of free speech and freedom of religion.
restaurants throughout the country.
Someone counted the number standing in line at Jordan Creek Mall waiting to buy a chicken sandwich. Fifteen hundred!
I got there at noon and the double lines extended to the doors. I left at 2:30 and the lines were just as long. Now think about this: thousands showed up to wait in line for hours just to buy a $3 chicken sandwich. Why? Because they’ve had their fill of being bullied by the political Left in this country who increasingly want to dictate what we’re allowed to believe.
This leads to the second event of the day, the implementation of the HHS Mandate on businesses owned by people of faith, and on some Catholic Universities. Enforcement began today.
If you recall twenty-five hundred Catholics rallied in Des Moines on July 1st in support of religious freedom and against this HHS Mandate.
The president is forcing Catholic-owned businesses and universities to violate their religious conscience by paying for abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception for their employees and students.
Enough.
We’ve had our fill of these liberal bullies imposing their secular religion on orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
Circle August 1st as the day the faithful struck back. Let’s call that Act One. Act Two comes on November 6th.
What a wonderful piece Tom. I wish I could have seen it. Our boss sent an employee to pick up lunch for all of us since we couldn’t get away. She was in line for two hours. I got a call from a friend while he was in line. He said the Chick-Fil-A phenomenon was a freelance story waiting for me to write it. He said the crowd was massive, there was singing, and the whole thing was awesome. Our employee heard from someone in the crowd who seemed to have first-hand knowledge that the City of Des Moines had turned down Chick-Fil-A’s application to open a store downtown. I can’t confirm that, but it would make us as bad as Chicago, Washington and San Francisco, God help us. I was out for an errand and heard the beginning of Simon Conway’s show and he started out on the Chick-Fil-A event, criticizing those other three cities. I put a call into his producer with what I’d heard about Des Moines. I couldn’t listen to the rest of the show to hear whether they’d found anything out about it. I really hope our capitol city leadership is not on the same level as these others, who are an embarrassment to public service. No matter the media coverage, which no doubt will be slanted, no matter the continued flogging the restaurant chain will continue to take for not succumbing to degenerated culture, hate, smearing, misrepresentation and leftist bullying, Chick-Fil-A and Dan Cathy are infinitely awesome and courageous. Today as you say was remarkable. Like the cows on the Chick-Fil-A billboard say: “Eat mor chik-in!” And as you also say, Nov 6 is a subsequent opportunity for the faithful to be heard. I hope and pray they are as eloquent then as they were today.
The challenge now is to get people with traditional values to not only vote themselves but to rally more people of like values (traditional marriage, pro-life, pro-right to work, religious freedom, free speech, and on and on) to vote. Make phone calls, knock on doors, write letters to the editor, be a poll worker or poll watcher on election day. The liberals have a strong grass roots organization. Conservatives need to get off their duffs and get moving doing more than just complain-we need to get moving!
We got a pretty good indication yesterday that the faithful are willing to put themselves out to protect our liberties.
Not to take away from all those of faith showing support, but I think this is even more than that. How can I ever expect you to listen to my beliefs if I stand by and let others trample yours.
I feel for those Chik-fil-A employees though. I am sure they don’t get too many lunch time rushes like that everyday. 🙂
I appreciate your intellectual honesty. By the way, the kids working behind the counter were absolute delights. They maintained smiling faces. I was impressed.
Dang! Now it looks like I’ll have to go to Chick-fil-A again tomorrow, to counter-balance the threatened gay “kiss-in”. Can these thought-control-advocates get any more ridiculous?
It does seem rather childish. Thanks for writing.