new balance 1500 sale, new balance uk, new balance sale uk, cheap new balance sale, discount new balance online outlet store

new balance 1500 A flap mixes principlesKentucky Derby High School Horses John Clay's Blog John Clay's Columns Kentucky Speedway Louisville Cardinals Mark Story UK SportsBaseball Basketball Men Basketball Women ExCats former Wildcats Football Game Archive John Clay's Blog John Clay's Columns Mark Story Next Cats: Recruiting Recruiting UK Photos UK Videos More UK Sports EntertainmentBar Guide Books Comics Games Contests Entertainment Videos Events Calendar Fashion Food Gaming Home Garden Living Movies Music Restaurants Rich Copley's Blog Snapped Party Pics Stage Dance TV DVDs Visual Arts OpinionEditorials Joel Pett Larry Dale Keeling Larry Webster Letters to the Editor OpEd Submit a Letter ObituariesObituary Stories Today's Obituaries Local DealsGrocery Coupons Local Coupons Local Ads Special Sections Store CircularsCranberry resident and gay rights supporter Sara Buggy stands as a lone voice in opposition to the hundreds of people who crammed the Cranberry, Pa. ChickfilA on Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012. ChickfilA supporters are eating at the chicken chain's restaurants as the company continues to be criticized for an executive taking a public position against samesex marriage. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, declared Wednesday "ChickfilA Appreciation Day." (AP Photo/Tribune Review, Philip G. Pavely) PITTSBURGH OUTFor years, health advocates have told us, "You are what you eat," meaning the food we consume has a direct effect on our health and wellbeing. In our evergrowing consumer culture, it seems you can apply that to your political and religious beliefs, too.That's been highlighted for the past few weeks by the furor over ChickfilA after its president and CEO, Dan Cathy, son of restaurant founder S. Truett Cathy, told Baptist Press that he believed in "traditional marriage," meaning between one man and one woman, and said on the Ken Coleman radio show, "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.' I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."Needless to say, this did not go well with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and groups, and those sympathetic to their causes, which include legalization of gay marriage. Calls for boycotts of the chain flooded Facebook, quickly followed by calls from conservatives to support the restaurant by essentially following its slogan: "Eat mor chikin," as written by its popular cow mascots.This week saw dual protests. ChickfilA Appreciation Day on Wednesday saw lines out the doors and wrapped around ChickfilA restaurants around the country in support of the chain. Friday night, after this column had gone to press, gay pride groups had announced "kissin" protests at ChickfilA restaurants.The funny thing is that any of this surprised anyone.Yes, Cathy upped the ante with his fireandbrimstone rhetoric, but ChickfilA has certainly built and traded on its reputation as a Christian company: remaining closed on Sundays after most of the retail world gave up resting on the seventh day, pushing the Christian cartoon VeggieTales in its happy meals and being a prominent presence at faithbased events such as the Ichthus Festival.Granted, being Christian does not automatically mean being antigay.But ChickfilA was clearly part of the more conservative evangelical crowd, giving financial support to the Marriage and Family Foundation and the Family Research Council, which actively oppose gay marriage.Over the years, I have talked to numerous people who say they like going to ChickfilA because they think they are supporting a Christian organization, and that seems somewhat reflected in the landoffice business ChickfilA does at lunchtime, at least when I have gone there, even when it's not ChickfilA Appreciation Day. But they usually shuffle you through really quickly while practicing that dying art of customer service.The chain, which is privately owned and does not release sales figures, claimed Wednesday was a record setting sales day, making Cathy's statement seem like a master stroke of public relations make a statement at no cost to the company and then a large segment of your customer base feels like it's making a declaration of faith by buying a chicken sandwich.This faithbased profile does set ChickfilA apart, as the modus operandi of most companies over the years has been to play down any political or religious affiliations, lest you risk offending a large segment of your potential customer base.But supporting companies because of their values is nothing new and is becoming more common. It certainly isn't exclusive to religious conservatives.Ben Jerry's ice cream and Starbucks have long supported liberal politics. Amazon president and CEO Jeff Bezos recently donated $2.5 million to the campaign for a samesex marriage amendment that is on the ballot in Washington state in November.No serious boycotts seem to be in the offing against any of those companies, and in the midst of the furor over ChickfilA, some have cautioned against getting too selfrighteous in one's consumerism.The idea of ideological consumerism was lampooned on The Daily Show earlier this week in a sketch in which comics Wyatt Cenac and Jessica Williams sat down with host Jon Stewart to discuss the controversy.Williams, representing the conservative point of view, chows down on a ChickfilA sandwich, and when Stewart attempts to have a bite, Cenac smacks it out of Stewart's hands, saying, "Liberals buy liberal products!"A moment later, when Cenac pulls out his iPhone, Williams complains that she wants one but won't buy it because Apple supports gay marriage. Cenac laughs, then Stewart points out that Apple has some "labor issues," referring to complaints about practices in its Chinese factories. Then he says ChickfilA does good things for its workers, including paying for them to go to college.At the end of the bit, Cenac concludes that he can eat at ChickfilA in good conscience, as long as he follows it with some Ben Jerry's, and Williams decides to buy an iPhone and load it with tunes by rightwing rocker Ted Nugent.On former state treasurer Jonathan Miller's Recovering Politician blog, former Kentucky secretary of state John Y. Brown III, son of former governor and chicken magnate John Y. Brown Jr., joked, "This creates a frenzy among the remaining fastfood chicken chains to see who will try to appeal to the gayfriendly chickeneating population."In the end, everyone needs to act on his or her own conscience. If you strongly support gay marriage, you probably will find it hard to go to ChickfilA. But if you start researching the fastfood joints surrounding our local ChickfilAs, you might find some politics that are equally disturbing or affirming, depending on your leanings.