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This latest attack on Chick-fil-A should serve as a cautionary tale to Christians in a hostile culture: Compromising your beliefs will never satisfy leftists nor cause them to leave you alone.
Chick-fil-A has been closed on Sundays since it opened in 1967, but several New York legislators want to mandate that some locations be open seven days a week, citing the convenience of travelers as justification.
A closer look reveals that this proposed legislation is yet another attack on this Christian business for its supposed hostility to LGBT causes. Chick-fil-A honors the Fourth Commandment — “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” — when it does no business or work on Sundays. The company’s overarching corporate purpose is “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.”
The backstory on the proposed legislation to change Chick-fil-A’s longstanding schedule began in 2020, when the state of New York started a $450 million update to the 27 rest areas along the Thruway, a 570-mile highway that runs across the state. The Thruway Authority then contracted with Applegreen, a company that operates gas stations and convenience stores, to renovate, rebuild, and oversee those rest areas. Applegreen is responsible for managing the funding, paying $300 million for renovations, as well as paying $51 million in rent and $103 million for improvements during its 33-year contract.
No tax or toll dollars were used for the improvements.
As a key part of the renovations, Applegreen brought in restaurants to serve the rest areas, one of them being Chick-fil-A.
Now, though, this new bill, filed in the New York Assembly by sponsor Tony Simone and four co-sponsors, would require all restaurants in government-owned public transportation facilities to be open seven days a week.
The legislative text specifically cites Chick-fil-A as the impetus for the proposed law, stating,
“Applegreen’s portfolio of companies include Chick-fil-A, which by company policy is closed on Sundays, and which has already opened at seven service areas. While there is nothing objectionable about a fast food restaurant closing on a particular day of the week, service areas dedicated to travelers is an inappropriate location for such a restaurant. Publicly owned service areas should use their space to maximally benefit the public. Allowing for retail space to go unused one seventh of the week or more is a disservice and unnecessary inconvenience to travelers who rely on these service areas.”
Simone further wrote on X, “It makes no sense for restaurants at rest stops to be closed on one of the busiest travel days of the week, but Chick-fil-A has been allowed to limit their service to travelers in their contract with the NYS Thruway Authority. My bill with @MichelleHinchey will change that.”
Hinchey said that having one of the restaurants closed for one day is an “inconvenience” and puts a significant strain on the restaurants that are open.
However closer examination shows that the opposition really has nothing to do with travelers and their needs. Simone, who is gay, chastised Chick-fil-A for its biblical beliefs on marriage and sexuality, saying,
“Not only does Chick-fil-A have a long shameful history of opposing LGBTQ rights, it simply makes no sense for them to be a provider of food services in busy travel plazas…a company, that by policy, is closed on one of the busiest travel days of the week should not be the company that travelers have to rely on for food service.”
When it was announced that Chick-fil-A would be one of the restaurants at Thruway rest areas, there was major backlash from members of the General Assembly due to Chick-fil-A’s alleged discrimination and bigotry against LGBT people and donations to “anti-LGBT” organizations.
Much of the opposition has come from openly gay lawmakers, including Harry Bronson, who wrote a letter urging that Chick-fil-A be banned from operating in the rest areas. He claimed that Chief Executive Officer Dan Cathy has made statements against homosexual marriage, that the WinShape Foundation, operated by S. Truett Cathy, has made donations to anti-LGBT groups, and that Chick-fil-A has partnered with the Salvation Army.
Hatred of the company by pro-LGBT lawmakers has been ongoing for over a decade. In 2019, Chick-fil-A announced it would not donate to “groups that had previously fueled criticism,” but despite this concession, activists and legislators still had Chick-fil-A disinvited from opening in the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Critics of the bill note that travelers aren’t reliant on Chick-fil-A being open on Sundays as each rest area has other restaurants available. A spokesperson for the Thruway Authority explained in a statement,
“As part of the new 33-year contract to manage these facilities, Applegreen is required to have at least one hot and cold food option available 24 hours a day at all locations. Chick-fil-A’s Sunday closure is a brand requirement which Applegreen factored into their tenant plan. When the project is complete, Chick-fil-A will operate in less than half of the service areas on the Thruway — all of which have at least one other food concept and a convenience store open seven days a week with up to three additional concepts and a convenience store at the largest and highest volume locations.”
This proposed legislation is clearly intended to target a single company, Chick-fil-A, making it an obvious case of religious bigotry and a state-sanctioned violation of the First Amendment’s right to religious liberty.
Chick-fil-A has always been closed on Sundays. In his book Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People, Truett Cathy wrote that Sunday is “the Lord’s Day,” and that keeping the business closed on Sundays “is our way of honoring God and showing our loyalty to Him.”
And even today, the company clearly explains the religious reasoning behind this policy on its website.
“Having worked seven days a week in restaurants open 24 hours, Truett saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest or worship if they choose, a practice we uphold today.”
This policy was known long before a contract permitting Chick-fil-A to operate in the rest areas was finalized. That contract, which runs for 33 years, is not even affected by this legislation; a law would only impact future contracts. Ideologues like Simone only pretend to care about consumers in an attempt to provide legal justification for their hostility and efforts to punish those with whom they disagree.
This is a brazen attempt to force Chick-fil-A to either leave the Thruway rest areas or violate their long-held beliefs.
In a free society, there is no right for lawmakers to force companies to assent to their beliefs nor is there a right (under the guise of the “right” of consumers) to force businesses to open their doors every day or every hour.
There is also no right to get whatever you want whenever you want it. Take Hinchey’s comments, which argue that Chick-fil-A’s Sunday closure is an inconvenience for travelers and a strain on other restaurants. In translation, she means that Chick-fil-A’s right as a business to keep the hours it chooses and its right to exercise the religious beliefs of its founder or CEO is inconvenient to others.
What is the Constitution’s answer to such a supposed grievance?
“Tough.”
If all that is required to steamroll religious freedom is that it inconveniences others, then we have no religious freedom.
There is a warning in this situation: Never compromise. Chick-fil-A caved after years of being attacked by the Left for its religious beliefs by ceasing its allegedly controversial giving and agreeing to be more inclusive — all in an attempt to give the Left what it said it wanted.
The result? Nothing. Today, Chick-fil-A is just as — if not more — hated by the Left.
What Chick-fil-A should have said was something like this: “These are our beliefs. If you don’t like them, don’t eat here.”
Instead it tried to make the Left happy. But as we’ve seen for years now, the Left will never be happy until it destroys anyone who is even tangentially connected to an opposing belief. In other words, when you acquiesce to the Great White Shark trying to eat you, it will still eat you — you’ve just made its job a lot easier.
If this nonsensical legislation passes— not an implausible outcome in leftist-dominated New York — the courts should quickly rule it unconstitutional.
But on the off chance it does actually go into effect, Chick-fil-A will once again have a choice to make: Hopefully, this time, it will choose to stand firm on its Christian beliefs and never again compromise.
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