Which Fast-Food Chain Is the Most Religious?

[cbayer]

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-25/which-fast-food-chain-is-the-most-religious

By Venessa Wong on July 25, 2012




According to the Gospels, Jesus fed the multitude with just five loaves of bread and a couple of fish. The Bible says nothing about chicken tenders or animal fries, but perhaps the story inspires devout entrepreneurs to enter the fast-food business all the same. There is indeed an inordinate number of outspoken evangelists running restaurant chains.

Chick-fil-A has had to backtrack some since its president, Dan Cathy, told Baptist Press that the company’s operations are “based on biblical principles” and supports “the traditional family.” The Atlanta-based company issued a statement on July 19 that it treats everyone with respect regardless of sexual orientation or gender and will “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

Chick-fil-A is not the first fast-food chain with religious ties. Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) used to hold mass in a conference room and In-N-Out Burger prints citations of Bible passages on its packaging.

While the chicken restaurant is taking a lot of heat, Father Gerald Cavanagh, a business professor at the Roman Catholic University of Detroit Mercy who has written about religion and business, says studies show companies with religious ties tend to have better values and working environments. Any manager “has the right to have a point of view, but as a businessman, he has to keep an eye on stakeholders,” Cavanagh says. They risk alienating consumers and must be careful not to discriminate on the basis of religion.

more at link

[skepticscott]

1. "Backtrack" as in "lie"

As in, "pretend they didn't mean exactly what they said." As in "Holy shit, we had no idea it wasn't good for business to publicly declare our deep and abiding homophobic bigotry."