N.C. college considers Chick-fil-A ban
(Associated Press)
(Updated 7:18 p.m.)
A high-priced North Carolina liberal arts college is considering kicking Chick-fil-A off campus because of the Atlanta-based company’s leader’s position on marriage.
Several months after they were made, comments by Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy in support of traditional marriage between a man and woman continue to reverberate. Earlier this month Cathy reaffirmed his commitment to “biblical families.”
The Student Government Association at Elon, a $38,000-a-year private college in north-central North Carolina, recently voted in favor of a resolution asking administrators to stop offering Chick-fil-A sandwiches on campus, according to The Times-News newspaper.
“We are honored to serve the students, faculty and staff of Elon University and to be a part of their campus,” said Chick-fil-A spokesman Jerry Johnston in a statement Wednesday. “The Chick-fil-A culture and 66-year service tradition in all of its locations is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. Our intent is not to engage in political or social debates.”
The Elon resolution, drafted by a campus gay-straight alliance, accuses the company of not being in compliance with Elon’s anti-discrimination policy, partly because critics say the company has funded groups considered to be anti-gay and lesbian.
The 35-11 SGA vote was made despite overwhelming support for Chick-fil-A by Elon students, alumni faculty and staff, according to a poll conducted by the student newspaper, The Pendulum, which supports keeping Chick-fil-A sandwiches on campus.
Chick-fil-A’s contract is with Aramark, Elon’s food service vendor. A university spokesman told The Times-News the college could instruct Aramark to find another vendor, but no decision has been made.
Whether Chick-fil-A is eventually dropped, however, is another matter. While many colleges have seen student protests and petitions against Chick-fil-A in the wake of Cathy’s comments, few have instituted an outright ban on the company’s sandwiches.
Elon, founded in 1889, has an enrollment of about 4,000 and ranks No. 2 among Southern universities in U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 America’s Best Colleges Guide.”
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175 comments Add your comment
Billy Ray
October 17th, 2012
3:48 pm
Elon: rich, white, dumb college kids with nothing better to do. All kids should be made to work, serve in the military or volunteer for the Peace Corps for a year or two before they are allowed to go to college.
True Christian
October 17th, 2012
3:49 pm
Gays want to force their agenda down our throats. I know the gay agenda because I frequently attend gay bars to minister to those poor, lost souls. Once I went in the bathroom and it was there that I saw the this throat forcing agenda on full display. I know what you’re thinking, but I only went in there to ask for directions on how to get away from there!
Mustang100
October 17th, 2012
3:50 pm
Key operating word here: arts college. Big deal. So open up a Church’s instead.
Big Al
October 17th, 2012
3:51 pm
Ain’t this sight. Look who’s talking.
Mustang100
October 17th, 2012
3:51 pm
Should read ‘LIBERAL’. Sorry.
Monty
October 17th, 2012
3:51 pm
@ RDU
I’m seeing a lot of class envy there. Just because your parents didn’t have the money to send you to Elon, you just want to bash those that through their hard work and effort were able to send their children to college.
Maybe instead of complaining about rich kids, you should get a job? But you won’t, you just want Obama to give your kids a free education that they did not earn. Typical lib.
LOL for James
October 17th, 2012
3:52 pm
**You have the right to say what you want, but people have the right to boycott you and/or ask the college presidents to choose another bowl instead.**
News Flash – the last Chic fil A boycott was an epic fail. Plus, there aren’t that many gay people supporting college football.
Big Al
October 17th, 2012
3:54 pm
College libraries need to put the Bible on the FICTION shelf where it belongs.
RDU
October 17th, 2012
3:58 pm
Monty. Class envy? I don’t have a problem with wealth, it’s the drugs that I have a problem with. When I registered to vote in NC, you had to pick a party. I picked Republican, and still do.
MJ
October 17th, 2012
3:59 pm
ITS SOMETHING GAYS GET PRAISED FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN AND CHRISTIANS GET MOCKED FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN. I JUST HOPE THIS COLLEGE NEVER OPENS A MUSLIM, JEWISH OR BUDDHIST BASED ESTABLISHMENTS. IF IT WAS ANY OTHER FAITH THIS WOULDNT HAD BEEN A PROBLEM BUT THIS ATTACK ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH BECAUSE ONE MAN STOOD UP FOR WHAT HE BELIEVES IN IS ABSURD. GO AHEAD CLOSE THE CHICK FILA AT THAT STUPID COLLEGE. CHICK FILA WILL BE JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU. IF THEY WASNT DOING FINE THEY WOULD BE OPEN ON SUNDAYS
Brad
October 17th, 2012
4:00 pm
Something is definitely amiss with that number 2 ranking for Elon.
John
October 17th, 2012
4:02 pm
I find it ironic that this school was founded by the Christian Church and up until 2000, the mascot of Elon was the Fighting Christian. This is another example of a minority of people (SGA) speaking on the behalf of the majority of students in error and ignorance.
Rich Black
October 17th, 2012
4:03 pm
Chick fil a sucks.
The Bystander
October 17th, 2012
4:05 pm
Chick-fil-A should pull it products from the campus. Then all the other students can get pissed at the SGA
@ Big Al
October 17th, 2012
4:08 pm
The wrong side of history … for years? When did gays and lesbians begin emaculate conception and start reproducing? Two wrongs don’t make it right!
shocked
October 17th, 2012
4:09 pm
Here is whats so great about this:
“Elon College was founded by the Christian Church, which later became a part of the United Church of Christ. The charter for Elon College was issued by the North Carolina legislature in 1889.”
and this:
“Up until 2000, the mascot of Elon was the Fighting Christians”
blkshepherd
October 17th, 2012
4:09 pm
Hmm..I neither support or am against gay marriage. I dont care if you marry a FROG. People can marry whomever they choose. Its None of my affair. Gays getting married will neither put a raise or my paycheck nor decrease it anyway. I still own my home and car and still am employed. So I am neither for or against gays getting married. I just dont give a rat’s ass.
Chick-fil-a
One of the nastiest tasting food chains I have ever had the displeasure of eating. If someone held a gun to my head and demanded that I tell them the Last time I ate at Chick-fil-A. They would have to pull the trigger. I pass by it daily and would rather eat at any other resturant than Chick
However they do have decent Milk shakes. But thats about it. I stopped eating at Chick Long before their stance on Gay marriage. So it had nothing to do with that issue. I just dont care for its product. The food tastes like crap.
FA$$OT
October 17th, 2012
4:10 pm
So the gay pervs have zero tolerance and despite overwhelming support of students and faculty they rule? Kinda like stats show they are less than 1% of the US population yet are always in the news demanding more rights
Really
October 17th, 2012
4:10 pm
The devil could make Chick-Fil-A sandwhiches and I would still eat there.
Monty
October 17th, 2012
4:11 pm
@RDU
Alright then. It’s good that you are not envious of the many people that have more wealth than you. When you complained about rich kids I thought you were a secret lib.
Dave
October 17th, 2012
4:13 pm
So if Chick-fil-A supported slavery and that was their opinion based on their interpretation of the Bible, I wonder if anyone would have a problem with that since it’s just an opinion and according to all the comments, they have a right to their opinion.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:15 pm
Employer
October 17th, 2012
3:46 pm
That’s cool with me. I just banned Elon grads from working at my company. Bans work in both directions.
C’mon man you’re not fooling anyone and you’re stealing time
Sasquatch
October 17th, 2012
4:15 pm
I will kick them elon dorks over the big chicken.
Braves #17 Fan
October 17th, 2012
4:15 pm
Chick Fil A. Way to stand strong and have a backbone through all of this. You are to be commended. Just don’t let them rattle you here. When it’s not happy hour at Steak-n-Shake, I go to Chick Fil A for my strawberry shake.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:16 pm
Billy Ray
October 17th, 2012
3:48 pm
Elon: rich, white, dumb college kids with nothing better to do. All kids should be made to work, serve in the military or volunteer for the Peace Corps for a year or two before they are allowed to go to college.
Yes America the freest nation on Earth should force people to be in the military. How did you get that stupid?
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:16 pm
Braves #17 Fan
October 17th, 2012
4:15 pm
Chick Fil A. Way to stand strong and have a backbone through all of this. You are to be commended. Just don’t let them rattle you here. When it’s not happy hour at Steak-n-Shake, I go to Chick Fil A for my strawberry shake.
Enjoy diabetes fatso
GJ
October 17th, 2012
4:17 pm
We are open minded….unless you disagree with us!
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:17 pm
FA$$OT
October 17th, 2012
4:10 pm
So the gay pervs have zero tolerance and despite overwhelming support of students and faculty they rule? Kinda like stats show they are less than 1% of the US population yet are always in the news demanding more rights
LGBT people don’t demand more rights, they demand equal rights.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:18 pm
GJ
October 17th, 2012
4:17 pm
We are open minded….unless you disagree with us!
Hey guys, you’re not being very tolerant of our zealotry and bigotry! Ha! Ha! Aren’t you libs quite the hypocrites, eh? Eh?
Really
October 17th, 2012
4:21 pm
“We thought the Crusades were a grand idea.”
The Christians
alex
October 17th, 2012
4:23 pm
The most close-minded people in America are liberals.
Elon Grad
October 17th, 2012
4:27 pm
Wow to some of these comments.
For starters, Elon is not an “easy” college to get into; public state schools, for in-state students, are easy to get into. Elon now receives over 10,000 applications nation-wide for an incoming freshman class of roughly 1,200, and currently the average GPA of incoming students is a 4.0 (as in, straight A average). Use your common sense; those are NOT the statistics of a safety school with “dumb” kids.
Second, suddenly protesting, a Constitutionally protected, essential right for every American, amounts to “nothing better to do”? I suppose all the protests that occurred in American history (see, the Boston tea party, Civil Rights) were largely the product of those with “nothing better to do”? Imagine where this country would be if its citizens didn’t exercise this (very legal) right, and instead found “something better to do.”
This protest amounted to Elon granting ALL of its students, regardless of social status, the right to determine a matter that has increasingly become a large public matter. That’s what a good, social-minded university does, instead of ignoring the complaints of those who disagree. But of course, putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and ignoring the protestations of society is your average conservative’s idea of a perfect, utopian society, so I can’t say I’m surprised to read the comments of those who find what Elon did offensive.
It’s a shame this story couldn’t receive decent comments to it without any that devolve into pity race and sexual preference baiting, but that’s how Georgia politics operate these days. Opening up the floor to discussion, rather than blindly continuing the status quo, should be the rule, not the exception, today, but sadly that’s simply not likely.
Drudge
October 17th, 2012
4:28 pm
Private property – that is their right if they please. If you are an Elon grad and a conservative – let them know why you aren’t sending your check this year. My alma hosted an Obama event and I told them they obviously didn’t need my money, get it from Barack and Michelle.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:30 pm
alex
October 17th, 2012
4:23 pm
The most close-minded people in America are liberals.
Categorically wrong. You’re just butthurt because we call our your rampant bigotry. But you can can change and be a better person.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:31 pm
Drudge
October 17th, 2012
4:28 pm
Private property – that is their right if they please. If you are an Elon grad and a conservative – let them know why you aren’t sending your check this year. My alma hosted an Obama event and I told them they obviously didn’t need my money, get it from Barack and Michelle.
I bet Elon is very, very concerned about your insidious plan.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:33 pm
By the way y’all, the correct expression is closed-minded. Not “close-minded.” Closed. At least try to know what you’re saying before you mash out another untrue reactionary talking point.
fed up
October 17th, 2012
4:38 pm
Liberals are the worst hypocrites. If someone doesn’t agree with their world view then they ridicule, name call and worse. In this case their goal is to close down a business where presumedly some of their classmates work. All they really have to do is stop eating there. As someone has already pointed out, if enough people stop dining at this location Chic Fil A will close it themselves. My bet is this is a few outspoken left wingers who want to enforce their ideology on everyone around them and Chick Fil A will continue to do just fine. It is an excellent fast food restaurant.
Good luck to these kids finding a job someday. Karma will not be on their side.
Elon, seriously?
October 17th, 2012
4:38 pm
The funniest part of the article is that parents are paying 38 smackaroos a year for their kids to get social services and cultural studies degrees from a school the rest of the planet never heard of. Good luck with that–Jobs at Chick-fil-A may be all the work they can find. “Would you like waffle fries with that?”
Abe Froman
October 17th, 2012
4:39 pm
Wow. Political discourse is getting more and more discorded. On average, does every Chick-Fil-A operator have the same political views as Dan Cathy? If not, why punish them? On average, blacks commit more crimes than any other race in the USA. Does that mean we should treat every black as a potential criminal? Here’s the rub – liberals and kids (private school college students) treat everything as a collective and try to act against the ‘machine’. Individuals should be able to make decisions whether or not to eat at Chick-Fil-A or somewhere else.
As a heterosexual, I support gay marriage. Why not allow gays that are in exclusive and long relationships be married? On the flip side, I shun the homosexual agenda that forces colleges like Elon (against the will of it’s students) to make a political statement by punishing a company due to it’s CEO’s exercise of free speech.
atowndown
October 17th, 2012
4:41 pm
Will you right wing religous nutjob’s bring please stop forcing your agenda down everyone’s throats? Why can’t you just be secure that you are correct in your beliefs and let everyone else be wrong? Stop trying to save people that do not want to be saved.
BILLY MAYS HERE
October 17th, 2012
4:44 pm
Elon, seriously?
October 17th, 2012
4:38 pm
The funniest part of the article is that parents are paying 38 smackaroos a year for their kids to get social services and cultural studies degrees from a school the rest of the planet never heard of. Good luck with that–Jobs at Chick-fil-A may be all the work they can find. “Would you like waffle fries with that?”
Most people in socioeconomic and income levels above you have heard of Elon.
Billy Mays is NOT Here
October 17th, 2012
4:44 pm
News Flash: Billy Mays died of a drug overdose. Sounds like he might have attended Elon before he snorted too much OxyClean. RIP
Elon Grad
October 17th, 2012
4:45 pm
“The funniest part of the article is that parents are paying 38 smackaroos a year for their kids to get social services and cultural studies degrees from a school the rest of the planet never heard of. Good luck with that–Jobs at Chick-fil-A may be all the work they can find. “Would you like waffle fries with that?””
Because we all know that the only jobs offered are to those graduates of schools people have heard of. Just because YOU haven’t heard of it, doesn’t mean it’s unknown; as I said, the school, with 1,200 students per grade, receives 10,000 applications per year. Not bad.
But of course, based on your logic, grads of Georgia Southern (maybe you?), a masters-level school that more people have likely heard of, should have no problem getting jobs. That, despite the fact that it’s far, far, far lower ranked than Elon is in the U.S. News rankings the AJC cited in the article. Good thing the average employer considers a school’s stature before and above a school’s notoriety.
I Give Up
October 17th, 2012
4:46 pm
Once again I’m embarrassed and ashamed by the attempts of local citizens to justify bigotry and hate in the guise of christianity. Chik-fil-a can support any cause they want, but I don’t want my dollars used to perpetuate the hate. And, believe me, as one who digs on the chicken sandwich, it’s takes a bit of effort. As for Elon, maybe the SGA believes as college representatives they have a moral obligation to vote in the interest of the greater good, chicken nuggets and CFA sauce be damned.
John 14:6
October 17th, 2012
4:47 pm
I don’t believe Cathy is shaking in his boots over this one.
Great thing about this country is that it gives every citizen the right to protest, believe in what they like. Like it or not this country was based around the Biblical beliefs. Just a fact and anyone with a brain can see that the more God is pushed out of the equation the worse this country gets….
That’s not an opinion, That is just FACT! Look it up!
Concerned
October 17th, 2012
4:48 pm
@Chris 3:29 PM, Are you saying that the article is using the “a” incorrectly? If so, you might want to look again. You use “a” before words that begin with “h” when the first sound is that of a consonant, and “an” when the first sound is that of a vowel. “High” is pronounced with the “h” sound before the “i”; therefore you should use the “a” article.
Drudge
October 17th, 2012
4:48 pm
@BILLY MAYS HERE – no I don’t. But when a few hundred, a few thousand alums – as was the case with my alma – start withholding their annual contributions, they become very, very concerned. That’s millions of $s homey.
TimeR
October 17th, 2012
4:48 pm
Diversity, free thinking! (unless your thoughts are different than ours!)
Thrash
October 17th, 2012
4:48 pm
Is the school really going to stand on the side of genetic freak sodomites? Really???
Just Dumb
October 17th, 2012
4:49 pm
I’m sick and tired of being force feed someone else’s beliefs and then further insulted by the their insistence on toleration of said beliefs. If you don’t like the constitutionally protected opinion of the owner of Chick Fila, then don’t eat there (which of course they are doing).
You are not making any type of a statement, other than accentuating your blind intolerance towards others that don’t share your sentiment. If a place provides terrific service, terrific product, and they don’t have my same beliefs, I’m STILL GOING TO PATRONIZE their establishment.