Sun. March 13, 2011
Clayton, Missouri -
A suburban St. Louis business group has told Dan Cathy of Chick-fil-a that they'd rather he not speak to their group after all, after learning about Chick-fil-a's support of anti-gay groups.
Cathy was supposed to be the guest speaker at the Focus St. Louis and Clayton Chamber of Commerce event on March 18.
But then a GLBT group, Promo, let the chamber know about Chick-fil-a's donation to an anti-gay "family" group in Pennsylvania last year.
"We are a pro-diversity culture here and certainly don't want to offend anyone," Chamber president Ellen Gale told StLToday.com. "We didn't know anything about this when he was booked."
Chick-fil-a was founded by Dan Cathy's father, S. Truett Cathy, who was a devout Christian. He is the one who started the still-standing policy of having all locations closed on Sunday.
The Georgia-based fast food chain maintains fundamentalist roots and has previously been connected to Focus on the Family, the anti-gay Colorado group founded by James Dobson.
The company's statement of purpose reads in part: "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us."
Chick-fil-a has more than 1,500 locations in 39 states.
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