Yesterday the founder of Chic Fil A passed away at the age of 93. I have never eaten at Chic Fil A, or met the owners, but I admired the founders principals and I respect his right to his views no matter how some may try to silence him or stop his business because it does not match up with their values. I find the people who claim to be tolerant as sometimes just the opposite. I had to share this song by Tim Hawkins today in memory of S Truett Cathy. I am posting the news story below, whether you can trust the media may be debateable, as the accuracy in the past was certainly questionable.
By KIM SEVERSONSEPT. 8, 2014
When he introduced himself, S. Truett Cathy often played down his job.
“I cook chicken for a living,” he would say.
And on the surface, that was true. Mr. Cathy, who died on Monday at 93, was by all appearances a humble Christian man from Georgia with little education who sold a simple sandwich: a breaded, boneless chicken breast on a soft, white, buttered bun with nothing more than a couple of pickles for garnish.
But as the founder of the Chick-fil-A fast-food empire, he was also a billionaire several times over and, as a conservative Christian who ran his business according to his religious principles, he was at once a hero and a symbol of intolerance. Many admired him for closing his outlets on Sundays and speaking out against same-sex marriage. Others vilified his restaurant chain as a symbol of hate.
He died at his home in Clayton County, Ga., a Chick-fil-A spokesman said.
Rising to prominence between Robert Woodruff, who took over Coca-Cola in the 1930s, and Sam Walton, who began the Walmart chain with a small store in Bentonville, Ark., in 1950, Mr. Cathy was one of a handful of Southern entrepreneurs who in one lifetime took small, hometown companies to a global level.
“He was really part of that generation that was our version of the Rockefellers or Henry Ford,” said William Ferris, a director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “They moved the South in ways that could have never been anticipated in their lifetime.”
Mr. Cathy’s company and its charitable arms have reached widely throughout the South, helping the region’s economy and promoting the founder’s Baptist values. The company required potential franchise operators, for example, to discuss their marital status and their civic and church involvement.
Mr. Cathy said he closed his restaurants on Sundays so that his employees could spend time with their families. But the policy was also a way to honor his faith.
“It’s a silent witness to the Lord when people go into shopping malls, and everyone is bustling, and you see that Chick-fil-A is closed,” he once told a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mr. Cathy’s beliefs underpinned the activities of the WinShape Foundation, a charitable arm of his empire that provided for scholarships, camps and foster care before branching out to support organizations that promoted traditional marriage. The foundation gave millions of dollars toward their efforts to oppose extending marriage rights to couples of the same sex.
“As it relates to society in general, 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,’ ” Dan Cathy, Mr. Cathy’s son and the president of the company, said.
Bloggers brought the donations to light in 2012, causing a furor. Advocates of same-sex marriage initiated boycotts and campaigned to stop franchises from opening in some cities and on some college campuses. Those who supported Mr. Cathy’s views also rallied, flooding Chick-fil-A restaurants with business.
In response, the company said it would step back from the policy debate over same-sex marriage and stop funding most of the groups that were at the center of the storm. Mr. Cathy never wavered in his beliefs, however — a point mentioned by politicians, celebrities and business leaders who commented on his death.
“In every facet of his life, Truett Cathy has exemplified the finest aspects of his Christian faith,” former President Jimmy Carter said in a statement. “By his example, he has been a blessing to countless people.”
Samuel Truett Cathy, one of seven children, was born on March 14, 1921, in Eatonton, Ga., the hometown as well of the author Alice Walker and Joel Chandler Harris, who wrote the Uncle Remus stories.
By 8, Truett, as he was called, was selling bottles of Coca-Cola in his front yard. Six years later, the Depression drove his parents to move the family to a public housing project, the nation’s first, in downtown Atlanta.
A poor student, Mr. Cathy never went to college, but he developed a sharp business acumen, which was supplemented by a strong work ethic he had learned from his parents. He often said the only time he ever saw his mother with her eyes closed was when she was in her coffin.
After he returned from the Army in World War II, he and his brother Ben opened a diner in Hapville, Ga., just south of Atlanta, in 1946. Many of his customers worked at a nearby Ford plant. The squat shape of the building inspired the name: the Dwarf Grill.
Chicken became a focus when Mr. Cathy started acquiring chicken breasts that had been rejected by another Atlanta company, Delta Air Lines, because they were either too large or too small for the airline’s food trays. Mr. Cathy began experimenting, frying breaded chicken in a cast-iron pan with a lid, the way his mother used to.
He gave his sandwich its unusual name so that a nation just falling in love with fast-food hamburgers might better understand his product: Chick-fil-A was meant to suggest a chicken steak.
As suburban malls came to the South, Mr. Cathy opened a Chick-fil-A at the Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta. It was a pioneering effort to put fast food inside shopping centers.
By 2001, the privately held Chick-fil-A had a thousand restaurants and $1.2 billion in sales. In 2013, the company had sales of more than $5 billion and had become the nation’s top-selling fast-food chicken, besting KFC.
Mr. Cathy instructed his heirs, who run the company, that they may sell it but must never take it public, because such a move could curtail the immense amount of charitable giving the company engages in.
Mr. Cathy is survived by his wife of 65 years, Jeannette; three children, Dan Cathy, Don Cathy and Trudy Cathy White; 18 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren.
In the five books he wrote, Mr. Cathy often emphasized the importance of giving over receiving and of treating others as you would like to be treated.
“We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed,” he said, “and the important things will not change if we keep our priorities in proper order.”
Correction: September 8, 2014
An earlier version of this article misattributed a quote. Dan Cathy, Mr. Cathy’s son and the president of the company, said, “As it relates to society in general, 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.’ ” It was not said by S. Truett Cathy.
Some of you know I attend an Assembly of God church. I am proud of the Assembly of God stand on this issue, that I posted two years ago, and has not changed. I certainly am not saying you have to agree with my views, but don't force your views down my throat and use the courts to go against the will of the people on this issue. You can't walk with God holding hands with the Devil. Why do people say "I believe in God" hen totally ignore everything the scripture teaches?
Assemblies of God Speaks Out on Chick-fil-A Controversy
7/27/2012 Steve Strang and Jennifer LeClaire
George O. Wood, General Superintendent of the General Counsel of the Assemblies of God (AG)
George Wood heard Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel loud and clear when he said that “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values.”
The General Superintendent of the General Council of the Assemblies of God now has a rapid fire series of questions for Emanuel and any other mayor who may be tempted to follow in his footsteps.
“Are you saying that the Catholics are also unwelcome in Chicago because they don’t have Chicago values? That evangelicals aren’t welcome? That Muslims aren’t welcome? That Orthodox Jewish people are not welcome?
“That other persons who have religious beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman don’t have Chicago values and therefore they are excluded from your community? Do you intend to discriminate against persons of faith? Do you intend to marginalize them? Are you becoming, in your view, intolerant of persons of religious faith?
Wood believes these are all important questions for the public square. As he sees it, the push to characterize anyone who has convictions about personal marriage as bigoted is itself bigotry on display.
“We are in the middle of a massive decision in this country as to whether we are going to embrace a path toward total secularism which marginalizes people of faith, or whether people of faith and other persons of goodwill are going to rally to the side of those who hold to the moral and religious values that have made this country what it is,” Wood says.
Indeed, Wood says the United States is at a watershed moment. At this time, he says it’s still up in the air as to which side is going to prevail. He’d like to see Christians be alert to the moment and mobilize for morals.
“Christians have a choice in this upcoming election, whether they are going to put their moral values ahead of everything else. There’s been so much talk about the economy and that’s understandable when you are hurting financially,” Wood says.
“But if the culture shifts and we become Western Europe replayed where religion is out of fashion, so to speak, then we are headed for moral chaos in this country and decline. Christians in this country have to come to an understanding of where they are with regard to the moral issues of our day—issues that relate to life and issues that relate to sexuality.”
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