Wendy's Caves To Radical Gay Agenda: Is There More To The Story?

Wendy's largest franchise owner, Jim Furman of Tarheel Capital, posted "We Stand With Chick-Fil-A" on the marquee of one of his restaurant locations and, according to FOX affiliate WBTV, the sign came down within hours after Wendy's corporate offices started receiving complaints, via Twitter, from radical homosexual activists. When asked by WBTV why the marquee messages were removed so quickly, Furman responded that the company "felt it was time to go back to their marketing message," but developments clearly suggest that there's more to this story and that Wendy's corporate executives forced Furman to take the message of support down to appease the "tyrannical tolerance police."

Furman's company, Tarheel Capital, is one of the largest Wendy's franchises in the world and owns 74 Wendy's restaurants in North Carolina and South Carolina. Furman confirms that signs in support of Chick-fil-A actually went up in multiple locations as well, but the exact number is unconfirmed.

Multiple news sources have already reported that the marquee postings came down in direct response to angry posts via Twitter that the Wendy's corporate office started receiving from radical homosexual activists. Dennis Lynch with the Wendy's corporate office responded to a number of the Tweets, saying: "An independent franchisee posted the sign, which he's taken down. We proudly serve ALL customers!" [Emphasis Lynch] Shortly thereafter, Lynch issued a statement to the media which read: "This is one independent franchisee's personal opinion. We are proud to serve customers of varied races, backgrounds, cultures and sexual orientation, with different beliefs and values. Bearing that in mind, this franchisee has decided to remove the messages from his restaurant signs." Wendy's patrons, in the meantime, are left feeling confused and, in some cases, angry over Wendy's politically correct response. Some are asking why Lynch chose to emphasize the word "ALL" in his response, particularly in light of the fact that Chick-fil-A also serves "ALL" customers and makes no decisions in its hiring or employee retention practices based on so-called "sexual orientation." One post to Twitter reads: "All that goodwill that @Wendys franchisee garnered earlier today? Obliterated by Corp. Wendy's." Another reads: "Whoever runs @Wendys’ @twitter account probably needs to be fired. They’re doing far more damage to the brand than the sign ever could have." And many more posts echo the above sentiments. Others are mystified by the implied hypocrisy in the statement Lynch released to the media. If Wendy's is, in fact, "proud to serve customers... with different beliefs and values," and the signs are the "personal opinion" of an independent franchise; then why force Furman to take the marquees posted at his restaurant locations down? Is not the concept of honoring all values and beliefs best served by allowing an open marketplace of ideas, or are some "beliefs and values" favored over others? The blog Prayer and Action gave its answer to that question: "Wendy’s has sent a message much louder than their intended message of 'inclusiveness and tolerance.' Their intolerance to be counted among the Chick-fil-A supporters could very well affect Wendy’s economic bottom line." Ironically (or perhaps not so ironically), Wendy's is no stranger to run-ins with the "tyrannical tolerance police". Over a decade ago, the homosexual lobby placed Wendy's former owner, Dave Thomas, in the cross-hairs, and called for a nationwide boycott of Wendy's, after noticing that Wendy's ads stopped running on the sitcom Ellen, around the time that Ellen DeGeneres "came-out of the closet." Whether Wendy's actually "pulled" the ads or the timing of the cessation was simply a coincidence, and Wendy's simply didn't make additional ad purchases after exhausting its last buy of ads for an unrelated reason (i.e., the show's ratings were abysmal), will never really be known, and its not really relevant. The fact that Thomas had been known to be a donor to conservative causes made him a prime target; the timing of the cessation of the ads was just saucy for the goose. A message had to be sent. Do our bidding or else. And Thomas and Wendy's were tailor-made targets that could be used as "examples" to effectively send that message to every private corporation that had ears to hear. Thomas eventually sold Wendy's (for reasons not related to the boycott incident) and passed-away some years back. He was, by many accounts, a decent man who will be sorely missed by family, friends, associates, and all those who enjoy "Hot and Juicy" burgers. One would think that Wendy's past run-in's with the "tyrannical tolerance police" would lead the corporation to be sympathetic to Chick-fil-A's plight; but it would appear that the corporation's recent politically correct kow-tow to the homosexual lobby is a clear indication that the message that was sent to Wendy's over a decade ago was received loud-and-clear. We can only hope that Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A will stand firm in the days to come.