The Chik Fil A Homophobia: It was never about free speech - by Steven Skelley

The Chik Fil A Homophobia: It was never about free speech

by Steven Skelley


In 2012, there was a huge controversy over published reports that Chik Fil A owner Dan Cathy had not only made public statements against equal civil rights for LGBT American Citizens but had boasted of donating several million dollars to anti-gay groups.

Groups such as The American Family Association have tweeted that the USA needs "an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households."

AFA's Bryan Fischer went on to say he supported KIDNAPPING children of gay parents to save them.

You want to know why Chik Fil A's owner disgusts me? Because he financially supports bullshit like this.

If he had said, "I gave several hundred thousand dollars to an organization that supports the kidnap and rescue of African American children from their parents," the whole country would be outraged.

But, because he targets LGBT American citizens instead of African Americans or Latinos, he is supported by fools.

Calling the man a Christian is an insult to Christianity. He belongs in the same category as Westboro Baptist Church.

And - just for the record - if anyone had tried "kidnapping and rescuing" my child from me, it would have been the last thing they'd ever done on planet earth.

In addition to the AFA, several other anti-gay religious groups have called for the internment (imprisonment) of LGBT Americans. Radical right wing religious groups have called for the re-institution of Sodomy Laws and even the death penalty for homosexuals. What is even more disgusting is, like Dan Cathy, they claim to be doing so "for God."

Rev. Scott Lively, of Abiding Truth Ministries, was the subject of a federal lawsuit for helping draft a Ugandan bill to impose the death penalty on homosexuals.

Chick-fil-A's owner Dan Cathy has said that gay marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation.”

Cathy reportedly donated more than $2,000,000 to religious zealots such as the American Family Association, Focus On The Family and Exodus International (which deals in gay therapy to make gays straight!)

The Chik Fil A Homophobic Controversy was never about Mr. Cathy's free speech. It was about his financing of hate groups that hide behind the church to persecute American citizens and to attempt to deny them basic civil rights.

It is no different than the bigoted and deadly foolishness of the Salem Witch Trials, the Inquisition, the Crusades and every other horrific religious effort to trample everyone's beliefs but their own.

Mr Cathy has every right to spew bigotry and support it with his millions of dollars.

I have every right to be disgusted with his hateful brand of religion.

****Steven Skelley is a published author of several nonfiction works (Positive Reflections: Inspiring Thoughts & Photographs From Around The World, the best of HOMETOWN HEROES florida, Every Day Is Mothers Day, 199 Tips For Your First Cruise) and the novella The Gargoyle Scrolls. He has been a newspaper columnist, travel writer, news writer, ordained minister, music director, creative arts director, theater reviewer and tennis instructor. He is very proud that his daughter Steffany Skelley Gilmer is an LGBTQ civil rights journalist.