7/29/2012
By Ivan Pereira
The mayor and city council speaker may be on the same page when it comes to gay rights, however they are on two different menus when it comes to Chick-fil-A.
Christine Quinn started a online petition Saturday demanding that Dan Cathy, the president of the fast food chicken chain, apologize for his anti-gay remarks and that the city ban his restaurants.
“We do not believe in denigrating others. We revel in the differences of our people and their families,” Quinn wrote in the online petition.
Cathy has come under fire from gay rights groups after he said he does not support same sex marriages. The restaurant has donated $2 million to anti same sex initiatives, according to Quinn’s office.
In addition to the petition, Quinn sent a letter to NYU president John Sexton and urged him to remove the Chick fil-A station from the Weinstein dining hall. It is the chain’s only location in the five boroughs.
A spokesman for NYU did not return messages for comment, however, the school’s Student Senators Council voted in March to keep the Chick-fil-A citing freedom of expression concerns.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg also opposed banning the restaurant from the city with similar reasons.
During his radio show Friday, the mayor, who said he never ate from the restaurant, disagreed with his counterparts in Chicago and Boston who also want to deny Chick-fil-A permits in their cities.
“You really don’t want to ask political beliefs or religious beliefs before you issue a permit,” he said.
Although Bloomberg has been a strong supporter of gay rights, he said the law still gives businesses the right to apply to set up shop.
