Chick-fil-A and Amazon

Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy was preaching to the choir.

On July 16 he gave an interview to K. Allan Blume, the “Biblical Recorder” who writes for the Baptist Press:News with a Christian Perspective wherein he covered a wide range of topics about his company which is managed, he says, on “biblical principles.”

This was my favorite line from the BPN article:

Based on Matthew 5:41, Cathy is on a mission to provide customers with “second-mile” service — exceeding even the highest expectations of a typical fast-food restaurant.

I liked that line because it rang true based upon my one experience at a Chick-fil-A restaurant.   I was so impressed with the Cherry Hill area Chick-fil-A that when arrived home the evening after I had lunch there a couple of months ago that I told my wife about it as one of the highlights of my day.  I never tell my wife about the fast food joint I eat at when I’m on the road.

I’d never heard of Chick-fil-A.  I keep calling it Chickafil. My friend and I just happened upon the place during the lunch break of a meeting.  “What is it, a Philadelphia area Boston Market?” I asked my friend who seemed familiar with the brand.

I was impressed with the place before my friend and I got in the door.  There was a woman sweeping the parking lot that gave us a warm and friendly greeting while we were walking in.   That struck me as an odd use of human resources during the lunch rush.  And how does management get their employees to be so happy when they’re sweeping the parking lot?  I had a vision of an employee of mine rolling her eyes when I asked her to do something she considered beneath her.  This place must be up to something good I thought to myself.  My only other memory of fast food employees outside of a restaurant was of those taking a smoking break.

Everybody in the place seemed happy.  There were cartoons of cows celebrating decorating the place.  No pictures of Jesus or the stations of the cross. The black woman who took our order (the woman cleaning the parking lot was white) was friendly and patient as we perused the menu for the type of chicken we were going to have for lunch.  She didn’t look at me funny when I insisted on paying for my male friend’s lunch.  She said thank you, not God bless you, when I paid and she apologised for the brief wait when delivering our sandwiches which she had offered to deliver to our table.

Half way through lunch, the parking lot lady showed up at our table offering free refills of our drinks.  She would refill them for us.

I felt really welcomed and appreciated at that Chick-fil-A. Serving me and my friend seemed to be more important to the employees than completing the tasks of service.  And it didn’t feel like a technique. It felt genuine.  No one said, “Have a nice day.”

Based on Matthew 5:41, Cathy is on a mission to provide customers with “second-mile” service — exceeding even the highest expectations of a typical fast-food restaurant.

It worked for me that day in Cherry Hill.

But that is not why Chick-fil-A was in the news this week.  Towards the end of his preaching to the choir interview with BPN Cathy said,

Some have opposed the company’s support of the traditional family. “Well, guilty as charged,” said Cathy when asked about the company’s position.

“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.

“We operate as a family business … our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that,” Cathy emphasized.

“We intend to stay the course,” he said. “We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

Cathy had no idea of the shit storm that was about to hit him and his company.

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Gay married couple sues Catholic institution over medical benefits

The religious exemptions clause of New York’s same sex marriage law was supposed to be the great compromise that broke down the barriers to gay couples marrying.  Without the protections the clause provided to institutions that objected to same sex marriage on religious grounds, the law would not have passed New York’s legislature or been signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo last year.

New Jersey’s Gay Rights community, which has a history of litigating against religious institutions that refused to allow their properties to be used for civil union ceremonies, embraced the religious exemptions clause and convinced the Democratic leadership of the New Jersey legislature to make same sex marriage the number one priority of the current legislative session.  New Jersey’s legislature passed the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act in February.  Governor Chris Christie vetoed the bill and called for the issue to be decided by Constitutional Amendment via referendum.  Despite polls indicating that New Jersey voters favor same sex marriage and that the favor Christie’s proposal to decide the issue via referendum, Garden State Equality and their allies in the legislature opposed a referendum, declaring that same sex marriage is a civil right that should not be decided by the majority at the ballot box.   Privately, same sex marriage advocates have acknowledged that they expect to lose a referendum, despite the polls that indicate they would win.

New York is leading the way again.

The New York Post reports that a lesbian couple from Westchester is seeking to overturn the religious exemptions provision of New York’s same sex marriage law in federal court.  “Jane Roe” and “Jane Doe,” a couple married on October 15, 2011, filed a class action suit in Manhattan because “Roe’s” employer, St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, refused to add “Doe” to the Catholic hospital’s medical benefits.

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A new trend in gender equality

Fighting back at legislative restrictions to abortion and contraception, female legislators in Ohio, Illinois and Virginia have introduced bills that would regulate the use of viagra.

In Ohio, Senator Nina Turner has introduced Senate bill 307, which would require men to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and produce a notarized affidavit from a sexual partner affirming impotence before getting their blue pills.  The Dayton Daily News article doesn’t say if the therapist can be the person signing the affidavit.

In Illinois, State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a lesbian rights activist appointed to the legislature last April and elected in November, has proposed a gender equality amendment to legislation would require women to get an ultra-sound before an abortion.  Her amendment would require men to watch a video depicting the side effects of Viagra and the treatment thereof.

In Virginia, State Senator Janet Howell submitted an amendment to an ultra sound before abortion bill  that would have required men to receive a digital rectal exam prior to receiving a Viagra prescription.  Her amendment failed but the ultra sound bill passed.

So far, there is no such legislation is proposed in New Jersey.

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Why do you need a license to get married?

During the ongoing debate about same sex marriage, in New Jersey and throughout the country, there have been those who have called for government to get out of the marriage business all together.

In New Jersey it is a crime to solemnize a marriage without a license.  Anyone who presides over a marriage ceremony for a couple who does not have a license is subject to a $500 fine and up to six months in jail.

Government did not always control marriage, according to Stephanie Coontz, an author who teaches history and and family studies and Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.

In a November, 2007 OpEd piece published in the New York Times, Taking Marriage Private, Coontz said that for most of Western history, the government was not involved in marriage.  Rather than an ‘institution,” marriage was a private contract between families.  If parents approved on a marriage, it was valid.  Church or State had nothing to do with it.

For 16 centuries the Catholic Church deemed a couple to be married if they said they were.  Not until 1215 did the Church deem that a marriage ceremony had to take place in a church in order for a union to be “licit.”  Yet couples married illicitly had the same rights and obligations as those who went to the chapel.

Government didn’t get involved until the 16th century in Europe.  Coontz says the European laws were, in part, to protect parental control of marriages.

The American colonies required that marriages be registered, but in the mid-19th century state supreme courts ruled that public cohabitation was evidence of a valid marriage.  (Who knew that people cohabited publicly back then?)

In the late 19th century the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and control who could be married.

Marriage, and the laws governing it continued to evolve during the 20th century.  Interracial marriages were prohibited for whites, then they were allowed again.

As the entitlement culture emerged, marriage licenses became a determining factor in the distribution of benefits, inheritance, and health care.   Coontz said this made sense in the 1950’s because almost all adults were married.

But that is no longer the case.  When Coontz wrote her OpEd piece in 2007, she said that half of all adults ages 25-29 were unmarried and 40% of American children were born to unmarried parents.  Last week, The New York Times reported that as of 2009, 53% of births to American women under 30 were out of wedlock.

As out of wedlock births have become more common the stigma of “illegitimacy” has faded.  That’s one reason sited as a cause of the surge in births outside of marriage.  Another major reason sited by the mothers The Times interviewed is the government “safety net.”

The Times reporters Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise spoke to dozens of people in Lorain, Ohio, a blue-collar town west of Cleveland where the decline of the married two-parent family has been especially steep, with 63 percent of births to women under 30 occurring outside of marriage. The young parents of Lorain saidtheir reliance on the government safety net encouraged them to stay single and that they didn’t trust their youthful peers to be reliable partners. Many said they would like to be married — just not right now, and not to each other.

It seems pretty clear that government regulating marriage hasn’t worked.  It also seems pretty clear that government entitlement programs have taken a massive toll on both the institution of marriage and the institution of family.

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